


From Distant Places Once Known

by strangedazey



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, Alpha Bucky Barnes, Alpha Steve Rogers, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Angst and Humor, Bad Jokes, Beta Sam Wilson, Bucky Barnes Recovering, F/F, F/M, Graphic Description, Gratuitous Smut, Knotting, M/M, Mating Bond, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Memory Loss, Multi, Past Violence, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sexual Violence, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-03-15
Updated: 2017-02-20
Packaged: 2018-05-26 23:20:00
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 27,452
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6260071
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strangedazey/pseuds/strangedazey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When HYDRA couldn't duplicate the serum that was used to create a super-soldier, they decided to breed one. </p><p>The Winter-Soldier Program went down as one of their biggest failures. </p><p>Bucky has been freed from HYDRA, but with only tattered memories of the past, it will be a race against the clock to stop HYDRA from succeeding this time. </p><p>That sounded way less dramatic in my head...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I really wanted to write some ABO Winter-Soldier, and this was the result of way too much time on my hands. Whoops. 
> 
> Warning: This is ABO, and there will dubious content, violence, dirty ass porn, etc. 
> 
> I will try and tag accordingly - but if anyone catches anything I miss, please let me know.

It sounds like the beginning to a bad joke. What happens when the Falcon, Captain America and the Black Widow walk in to a psychiatrist’s office? But no, this is actually her life, and all Sophie can do is give Sam Wilson the filthy look he deserves for dropping this mess at her feet.

 _This is what you get for being a fucking Omega,_ Sophie thought sourly as she struggled to keep calm. Because that’s when you end up with Captain America and the Black Widow in your house wanting you to do something for them. Sophie just shoots another squinty look at Sam, and this time he doesn’t quite meet her eyes, the fucker.

“What can I do for you, Captain Rogers?” Sophie finally asked after Sam had taken care of the formal introductions. She directed her question to Steve even though she already knows the answer to it, because Sam had called her a week ago asking for her help. Sam had also obviously, taken the answer that she’d think about it, as a _yes_ , and then ran with it, because here they all were.

Oh, and then let’s not forget the rather memorable phone call she’d had with Natasha Romanoff last night, but right now, she wants to hear it from Rogers. According to Sam, this man is the one who knows James Barnes the best, and she needs to know his reason behind seeking her out, besides what Sam had no doubt told the man about her.

Sophie can already scent the anxiety that is hanging over Steve Rogers like a dark, bitter cloud. Anxiety, fear, and the faint sense of hope which is almost worse, because hope is a wild, unpredictable thing that has no rules, and it can get you involved in all sorts of things you don’t necessarily want to get involved with.

“I need you to help my friend,” Steve said with a earnest smile, leaning forward in his chair now as he spoke. “Sam’s said you’ve had success reaching other people that no one else could, and I --

“I work with kids,” Sophie cut in quickly. “And never with the level of trauma that you’re talking about.”

“Didn’t anyone else think it was strange that you were covered in that much blood when your cousin was attacked?” Natasha interrupted, ignoring the shut-the-hell-up look that Sam and Steve both gave her now. “You were only 14, and of course no one thought to question you as to who really killed one of his assailants, because no one thought to look at the helpless, little Omega.”

“NATASHA!” Steve bellowed.

Sam actually face-palmed as he mumbled, _“oh my god”_ under his breath.

“Get out,” Sophie said very quietly, because if she raises her voice she’s going to start screaming at the other woman. “Get the _fuck_ out of my house.”

Steve rumbled a soothing sound at the little Omega and put his hand over hers, felt her start at the contact, and watched in dismay as her golden brown eyes lit with fury. Natasha’s thinly veiled threat had backfired in a big way -- Sophia Spencer is furious with him, with them all, and this could not have been going more wrong right now.

“Miss Spencer, I’m so sorry. We’re not here to threaten you, or anything like that,” Steve said, and gave her his best stage show smile -- that missed the mark by a mile if the scowl on her face was any indication of what was going through her head right now.

“Sophie, just calm down for a minute,” Sam said cajolingly. “You’re the best there is, and Steve’s boy needs your help.”

“Don’t you dare tell me to calm down, Sam Wilson.” Sophie yanked her hand out from under Steve’s, and then growled at him for good measure. “There are other people out there that would be beating down the door at the chance to do Captain America a favor, and I bet the Black Widow wouldn’t even have to try and blackmail any of them either,” she said with a sneer in Natasha’s direction.

Sam crossed his arms over his chest and stared her down. “Yeah, but none of them are you, you grouchy little shit, and Barnes needs all the help that he can get at this point.”

Natasha had pulled a thick file out of her bag, and tossed it on the table in front of her. “Ever have a chance to see what HYDRA did to recruit people?”

“Like I give a _shit_ about any of this,” Sophie fired back at her. Steve made a strangled sound deep in his throat at that, and it made her look over at him because he’s putting off enough distressed Alpha pheromones it’s getting hard for her to ignore. Pain, regret, and enough guilt to drown the world, Sophie thinks, and after a long moment picked up the folder and flipped it open. It is a tale of suffering, of torture, because there is no other word for it, and as Sophie skimmed through the first few pages of the dossier she feels a frisson of horror go through her before she looks up at them.

“HYDRA couldn’t recreate the serum. They couldn’t make another soldier in the lab so they tried to breed one,” Steve said in a voice dull with horror as he gestured at the file in her hands. “And no matter how many Omegas they tried to get him to rape, he wouldn’t do it. No matter how much they fucked with his head or hurt him, Bucky _still_ wouldn’t do it.”

Sophie can see Sam giving her a knowing look, before quickly turning away to hide a grin when she narrows her eyes at him. Romanoff is watching her with a smirk that just pisses her off all over again -- but Steve Rogers is staring at her like she’s his very last hope in the whole world, and Sophie feels her heart sink because she is so _screwed_.

“The Avengers have to have doctors on their payroll that would have more experience with this kind of thing than I would,” Sophie said, and then watches Sam exchange a look with Steve Rogers that she thinks can’t possibly bode well, because Captain America is practically squirming in his seat as he thinks how to answer her question.

“Uh, he hasn’t gotten along with any of them very well,” Steve finally said, giving Natasha a dirty look when she laughs at his wording.

“Are they just not connecting with him?” Sophie asked, raising a brow at Sam, then sighing when he just shook his head at her, and rubbed her now throbbing temples. “Has he killed anyone yet?”

“Only maimed a couple of them. No one’s actually died. Yet,” Natasha deadpanned, ignoring the look of horrified disbelief on Steve’s face.

Steve got to his feet and walked over the window thinking hard. Sam had told him that this doctor was the best he’d ever met at working with PTSD. That Sophia Spencer was in a league of her own when it came to getting through to people, and that she’d been able to help the ones that no one else could. Steve thinks that the Omega doctor looks remarkably pretty, in a girl-next-door sort of way. She’s short and delicately built, with long, curly black hair, and when you topped it off with the big brown eyes that he could currently feel burning a hole in his back, she looked almost impossibly young. Until you really looked at her, and then there is an undeniable weight to her gaze that makes him feel beyond a doubt that she is the one that Bucky needs.

Sam had told him about Sophia Spencer after one of Buck’s doctors had come up with the idea that Omega contact would help his friend stabilize his wildly out of control ruts. And it seemed like a great idea in theory, but so far, no Omega had yet to come forward wanting the job. With good reason. Even in this day and age of heat-suppressants and birth-control that hadn’t been available when Steve had been growing up, a rutting Alpha could potentially trigger a spontaneous heat, and rapes, and unwilling bonds still happened despite the best of precautions. The file that Natasha had compiled about the Omega doctor had told Steve that this woman had more reason than most to refuse to help them, even beyond the obvious. A cousin that had gone into heat in a public place and had been violently assaulted in an attack that had left one of the Alphas dead, and David Spencer with enough damage that he’d never be able to have children. The official report stated that the cousin had been the one to kill one of his attackers, but he had been unconscious when help had finally arrived, and according to the police report; little Sophia Spencer had been standing guard over him covered in blood. Add in the fact that she had a broken arm and a couple cracked ribs, and Natasha had made a good point -- no one looked twice at the poor little Omega girl.

The more recent death of her sister from a broken bond, had, according to Sam, done nothing to change Sophia’s opinion about the Alpha population in general. But … the more Sam had talked about his friend, the more Steve had become convinced that this woman would be able to reach Bucky, and he decided that he needed to, had to, meet her. Steve can still feel her watching him now, and he knows that she’s going to say no to his request, and he cannot walk out of her office without getting her to say yes.

“I refuse to give up on him, because if the situation were reversed, Bucky would never give up on me. I can’t walk away. I won’t.” Steve tightened his grip on the window sill until he hears the wood giving a warning creak, and takes a deep breath, striving for control as he forces himself to take a step back. Destroying the woman’s home is probably not the best way to win her over, and by the lack of an immediate no way in hell, he thinks she is at least now considering his request for help, and it has him clenching his hands into fists as desperation nearly chokes him.

“Captain Rogers, just from a glance this goes so far beyond anything I’ve ever --

“Bucky needs help. He needs _you_. He still wakes up screaming most nights, he can’t hold food down half the time, and I don’t know what else to do to help him. The doctors say that rutting this frequently is killing him, but because of HYDRA drowning him suppressants for years and what ever else they’ve given him, there isn’t anything they can give him to stop it. An Omega presence might help him stabilize. Might give him some breathing room to get better, so please, please, help my friend,” Steve whispered as he turned back to face her, and the sense of relief he feels when he watches her eyes soften as she picks up Bucky’s file and take out a couple of pictures almost leaves him lightheaded.

“He may never be the person that you remember, and you need to accept that. I will not make things harder on him just to make it easier for you,” Sophie warned him as she looks into Steve Rogers pain-filled eyes, but when he just nods slowly in answer she can feel some of the crushing sense of panic inside her ease a bit, because she thinks he gets it. Her fingers are wanting to shake as she studies the old black and white picture of a strikingly handsome young man in his uniform, before picking up the more recent one that had James Buchanan Barnes’ huge blue eyes staring a hole through who’d ever been behind the camera, and it’s that one that sends a chill running down her back, and her hands aren’t steady when she puts it back down. Because it’s the very same look that she’d seen in her sister’s eyes the last time she’d seen Olivia, the last time that Sophie had seen her sister alive. And it told the story of a pain beyond bearing-- because at that point, Olivia had already given up on everything.

“I may not be able to help him at all,” Sophie finally said when she was confident that she wasn’t going to do something to embarrass herself. The sigh of relief that comes from Steve would have been enough to make her laugh if she hadn’t thought she’d start crying instead. She’s avoided getting involved with Alphas all her life, and now this happens, and Sophie picked up the file and straightened the papers that had spilled out of it to give herself a minute to think before speaking again. “I’m going to need a day with this, then after that I want to talk to you. Everything that you know that has happened to him beyond what’s in his file, and then everything that you can tell me about him. I need to know who he was, so I can help him find out who he is now.”

Steve has to close his eyes for a minute to keep it together, it feels like the lump in his throat is choking him. “Anything you need me to do, I’ll do it. Anything at all.”

Sophie smiled at him then. "So, when do I meet him?"

* * *

The file on James Barnes reads like a bad science-fiction novel. Bad science-fiction with a side of creepy as fuck porn once you throw in the whole breed-your-own-super-soldier factor into it. It amazes Sophie that he had managed to live through what had been done to him, let alone have survived with any sense of self still intact. It gives her hope that maybe, just maybe, she can help him, because it sounds like the serum that HYDRA had given to him in an effort to make him stronger, more resilient, etc, had really come back to bite them in the ass in a major way. It’s obvious from the recent brain scans that as many times as HYDRA had tried to wipe his mind clear of the past that his now enhanced healing ability was trying to fix the damage done to his mind by the electroshock and the drugs. It had left James with incomplete memories and a fragmented past, but Sophie thinks that with time he should be able to recover more than she’d ever initially thought possible.

The inconsistent ruts, and the issues with food she thinks are just probably the result of all the years James had been denied the opportunity to do things in any type of a normal fashion. These days, medication could suppress an Alpha’s ruts, but now, also thanks to the serum he had been given, and years of HYDRA giving him almost lethal doses of suppressants at times, and then whatever the serum had done to his normal cycle of ruts, medication for him isn’t an option. One of the endocrinologists had suggested to Steve that if Bucky were to be exposed to an unbound Omega his ruts would, hypothetically, slow down in order time with their heats and then settle into a normal pattern and the irregularity would correct itself. Didn’t sound like a problem, right? Except for the part where the unbonded Omega is question would have to be off heat-suppressants in order for Barnes to be able to scent their pheromones, and let’s not forget the very real possibility of getting knotted, getting pregnant, or getting bonded to person they didn’t even know, and all the other shit that went with it.

So, when Sam had said he knew just such an Omega that would be crazy enough to try it, it wasn’t really a big surprise that Steve had beaten a path to her door. It’s the fact that she had _agreed_ to try and help his friend that still made Sophie wonder if she’s gone temporarily insane.

* * *

Sophie takes long walks with Steve Rogers while he tells her all that he knows about James Buchanan Barnes, and the Winter Soldier. How they had grown up together as kids in Brooklyn, with Bucky protecting him when he had been unable to do it for himself. About their time together in the war fighting against HYDRA. She asks him endless questions, and if Steve ever thinks it’s odd that she has him describe certain things over and over to her, he never once protests any of it, even though at times she can tell it hurts him to talk of it. It doesn’t take him long to paint a clear picture of his friend for her, and it makes her heart ache for them both as Steve describes how Bucky had fallen from the train, and how he had thought he had lost him forever. Grief colors his words with pain, and Sophie had found herself taking his hand in hers as Steve tells her of their fight on the helicarrier. How he had thrown down his shield and finally refused to fight, even if it had meant his death, and of the tears he had seen in his friend’s eyes before he had fallen into the river.

“It wasn’t your fault.” Sophie watched Steve flinch at her words as they stopped for her to catch her breath. They had gone running today, and between the difference in height and then just how damn fast Steve was she felt like she’d need oxygen soon if they didn’t take a break.

Steve frowned down at her and shook his head. “The one time that Bucky really needed me, needed my help, and I just fucking blew it. HYDRA had him for years. They tortured him for years. Every time he disobeyed their orders or he didn’t toe the goddamn line fast enough for them. They took _everything_ from him. He’ll never be able to forgive me for it. He shouldn’t forgive me.”

Captain America dropping the f-bomb has Sophie fighting back a smile, even as his words have her shaking her head at him. Steve is definitely a product of his era. Usually the epitome of the perfect Alpha gentleman in front of a lady, and the rough curse is out of character with his normally ultra-polite nature.

“I understand guilt, Steve,” Sophie said softly. “But if it had been you that had fallen from that train and ended up with HYDRA, would you have forgiven him?” It doesn’t matter that she knows that there is nothing he needs to be forgiven for. It matters that Steve quit beating himself to death over it so he can move on and help Barnes with his recovery, and the thought has her wanting to laugh even though it isn’t funny -- because is she really the best one to give advice on this subject? Probably not, but he doesn’t need to know that.

Steve clamped his mouth shut, refusing to answer her, but Sophie made a soft, soothing sound at him, and Steve can smell the scent she puts off: the natural response of an Omega trying to soothe an Alpha, and it drains away some of his anger and helps calm his raw nerves. When Steve was growing up, Omegas were kept separate from society as a whole until they were mated, and even then it wasn’t common for them to be out in public. That being said, he’d never really been around an Omega as an adult until he’d met Sophia, and the effect was startling to say the least.

Omegas were supposed to be able to give balance to the naturally more dominant Alphas, and Steve, along with most of the rest of the population, equated Omega with being submissive, being weaker than Alphas or Betas, when it couldn’t be farther from the truth. He’d asked Sophia how she’d be able to help Bucky maintain control, really Steve had wanted a demonstration, and after a bit of hemming and hawing, she had finally given in. Sophie had given him a pained look at his request before slowly nodding in agreement, and then she had relentlessly asked him question after question about HYDRA. About what he knew of Bucky’s time under their control, and when he had been at his breaking point she’d taken his hand and the damning sense of failure he had lived with since he’d watched Bucky fall from the train was just suddenly more bearable. All of the anger, all of the fear, all of the self-loathing had shifted in his mind, and he had just felt … better. Not that the feelings were gone, but that for the first time, it wasn’t crushing him under the weight of it. Like a hug from a friend when you needed it the most. A hand reaching out for you in the night when you were feeling lost and afraid of the dark. Sophie had wrapped a feeling of calm and safety around him, and it was everything that makes a person feel whole and good and not alone, leaving Steve speechless at the time, and staring at her with tears standing in his eyes.

Steve can feel it again now, a warm sense of peace flowing over him, and it has him huffing out a laugh and giving her a reluctant smile. “Okay, maybe I needed that, but enough talking about me for now.”

“I can’t see your point,” Sophie said as she crossed her eyes at him to make him laugh, and they walked back towards her house. “We’ll get him sorted out.” Sophie said, then gave Steve’s shoulder a gentle push when she feels a wave a sadness from him at her words. “I mean it. It may take a little while but I’ll get him back for you.”

The hard hug Steve gives her then knocks the wind out of her, _and he possibly crushed one of her lungs with the embrace_ , but Sophie counts it for a win as he walks away with a lighter heart and a smile on his face. As she watches him leave she wonders what the hell had gotten into her. She’s never been one for making promises like that because they were often way too hard to keep, and she wants to kick her own ass for being so careless but there’s nothing to be done for it because the words had already been said.

Now it was time to put her money where her mouth is.

* * *

The next day she met Natasha in the lobby of the Avenger’s training facility, and the Black Widow gave her a nod in greeting as she led the way to the elevators, not saying anything until the doors close behind them.

“It’s good to see you’re not a complete idiot,” Natasha said as she pushed the button for one of the many sublevels.

“Thanks for the vote of confidence, because I was just _sooo_ worried about what you really thought of me,” Sophie drawled, then mimed wiping sweat from her brow in a show of relief.

Natasha smirked at her. “I meant going for the casual look. And by the way, good choice of footwear.” At the questioning look Sophie gives her, she elaborated. “Unless I’m wrong about his ability to hold his shit together, Barnes is set to lose it in the med-lab in, oh, about five minutes ago. Which gives you plenty of time to get there for the rest of the show and then you’ll need to run for cover.”

“I don’t want him to associate me with the other doctors. He’s had enough things done to him by people who should have taken the oath to do no harm a little more seriously. Me showing up in doctor-mode would have been a little counterproductive,” Sophie finally said in explanation. Normally, she didn’t bother much with her hair or make-up, but today she’d carefully applied mascara to accent her light brown eyes, and her hair hung loose curls down her back. Jeans and boots, and a dark gray sweater, and she was as ready for this as she was going to get. “And I never run,” Sophie added with a sneer of her own, and sees something flash in the other woman’s eyes at her words that just might have been a hint of grudging respect.

“That’s good. Make sure you keep that mind-set after you meet him,” Natasha said as the elevator finally comes to a halt and the doors opened.

* * *

 

Sophie can scent him as soon as she steps out of the elevator. Fear and rage and despair all tangled together with a weight to them that is almost frightening. The emotions crawl over her skin with icy fingers, and she shivers involuntarily under the onslaught of his pain. The farther they go down the hall the easier it is to hear the raised voices coming from the open doorway at the end of it. There is a enormous crash that is quickly followed by a metallic clatter, and then the sound of glass shattering. Followed by a shrill male scream. It has odd, surreal quality to it that has her choking back a wild urge to laugh, and then a man in scrubs runs out, followed by a tall woman in white lab-coat, along with Steve, and the woman is practically sputtering with fury as she berates him in strident tones that immediately grate on Sophie’s nerves.

“What exactly was I supposed to do then? I had to sedate him to be able to get the blood samples that we needed today.” The reprimand is clear in the woman’s strident voice as she continues to harangue him. “If you would have just consented to the anti-psychotic medication that I recommended for him, he would be much easier to control by now.”

Steve gives the woman a nasty look that has the doctor taking a step back before she can stop herself. “I want you to stay away from him,” he said through gritted teeth as he glared at her now, “I don’t try to control of my friends.”

Natasha gave the woman a finger-wave before she storms off. Steve looks about as miserable as a person can get, and like he really needs to punch something as he scrubbed a weary hand over his face and leaned against the wall. Sophie pulled the strap of her messenger bag over her shoulder and passed it over to Natasha, and turned to Steve with an expectant look.

“What the hell was she trying to do to him?”

Steve raked his hand through his hair in frustration. “They’re trying to figure out what Zola had given him compared to what was used on me, and Buck doesn’t handle the medical procedures very well.”

“So, she just went ahead and sedated him against his wishes, and then forced a man who has been tortured and experimented on to submit to a medical procedure,” Sophie said, disgusted as the woman’s meaning become clear to her now. “That vile bitch is not to touch him ever again. As a matter of fact, unless it’s something to save him from dying, I want everything else cleared through me from now on. And I want her gone.”

Natasha raises a brow at the order but gives her a nod of agreement before pulling her phone out of her pocket to make the call. Steve hadn’t even flinched at her calling the other doctor a bitch, and she can feel that he’s practically vibrating with the need to do something as he ran his fingers through his hair again. Sophie puts a hand on his shoulder, rubbing gently at tensed muscles, and after a minute Steve makes a strangled noise low in his throat before giving her a shocked look that has Sophie rolling her eyes at him.

“Omega, remember?”

“You were holding back when you’ve done that before,” Steve finally choked out when he could get enough air to speak again.

Sophie just laughed, and then she gave him a nudge. “C’mon, Steve. It’s show time.”

* * *

The med-lab looks like a bomb had gone off in it. A chair was stuck halfway through the wall nearest the door, and broken glass and medical instruments of all kinds littered the floor, along with the occasional splotch of blood, and standing at the epicenter of all the destruction is James Buchanan Barnes.

Sophie can hear Steve telling Bucky who she is, and reminding him of why she is here, but she pays little attention to what he’s saying, and she just watches the man in front her. James Barnes is standing in profile to her, bent slightly over a medical exam table, and he’s gripping it so hard with his prosthetic hand that she can see ripples in the steel where his fingers had dented it from the pressure. Dark brown hair hangs in a curtain that partially conceals his face from view, but she can see that he’s not totally lost to the panic-attack when he turns at the sound of glass crunching under her boots. His blue eyes are red-rimmed with exhaustion and they quickly narrow in distrust as she steps closer, and he is swaying on his feet as the drug has its way with him. Sophie studies him silently and thinks that the pictures in his file really didn’t come close to doing him justice, because even while drugged and half-dead from lack of sleep, James Barnes really is striking. Thick muscles shift in his arm as he let go of the table and turned to face her, and it draws her attention to the steady drip of blood from his right arm that had coated his skin with crimson from his elbow to the wrist. Sophie mentally curses the other doctor again when she sees that the needle had broken off still in the vein, and is stuck in the bend of his arm from the failed attempt to take a blood sample.

“I need to help you.” It’s not really what she had meant to say, but he doesn’t move away as she came closer, and held out her hand to him. “I’m Sophie.”

Bucky stared at the girl standing in front of him as he tried to make sense of what she was saying to him. The drug they had injected him with is making it hard for him to think, and it’s a struggle to make sense of what is being said to him. He had been doing all right until they had tried to restrain him. Just a few simple tests.

It was _never_ just a few.

_They poked and prodded at him, whispering amongst themselves until he was left with nothing. Just a thing to be studied as they cracked him open and stole what was inside, leaving him empty and broken. His heart had started racing as they had exchanged glances, the sting of a needle further proof of their lies, and the sight of the restraints in the woman’s hands had him choking on fear when she had secured it around his wrist. His mind is no longer his own as he comes out of the chair and he gives the woman a hard shove, leaving a trail of broken glass and twisted metal behind him as blind terror sets in, and the bolts holding the chair to the floor give with a metallic shriek as he tears it loose and throws it at the wall. The drug is fast acting and he grabs the table for support as he struggles to keep on his feet as he realizes that they had fled and left him alone. Bucky wonders how long it will take for the others to come and punish him for trying to resist, and the thought has him fighting a useless urge to cry._

The voices out in the hallway are raised as they are argue about him and Steve is very angry at the doctor. Bucky hears another person talking that he doesn’t know, and he’d laugh at the sound of the stranger calling the doctor with the cold eyes a bitch if it wasn’t taking all his energy just to stay upright.

Steve comes back in the room, but he’s not alone. Steve tells him that the dark haired woman’s name is Sophia, and Bucky dimly realizes that she must be the one that Steve had told him about. He has been talking to a therapist that Sam had recommended about his time with HYDRA, what he could remember of it anyway, and Steve and Sam both had said that this girl would be able to help him sort through his memories and help him stay calm even though he’s not sure he wants to remember.

“I need to help you.”

The words make no sense to him, and Bucky sees that she is still waiting patiently for him to respond even though she hadn’t really asked him a question -- she had just told him her name. _She is Sophie._

He is a soldier. It is what he is left with, and he cannot help but think of her as a potential target. He puts her at a couple inches over five feet tall, and probably no more than a hundred and ten pounds soaking wet. Curly black hair, fair skin with a few freckles scattered across her nose and cheeks, and he thinks that her light brown eyes look kind as she lets him look his fill. She doesn’t seem bothered by his intent perusal either like most others are, and just waits for him to decide what to do.

His name is James Buchanan Barnes. Bucky. He is Bucky now. _Again?_ Bucky sees Steve move closer to them, and he wants to put himself between the other man and the girl. She is not a threat and he wants to -- he shakes his head hard to try and clear it, and slowly reaches out and takes her hand in his. Her fingers are warm as they curl around his, and he lets her hold his hand without knowing why.

Steve spoke again, “Buck, this is Sophia. She’s going to help you. Do you remember me telling you about her? ”

It’s almost enough to make him laugh. Help him do what? _The light scent of Omega teases the air and he shudders in response._ Sort through his memories and then what? Remember the life that HYDRA had stolen from him? Remember the endless cold, and the pain, and how they had ripped everything away from him over and over again?

Bucky takes a step back and makes himself let go of her hand. Her fingers are soft and warm and so much smaller than his, and he had been holding on to her for much too long, but she didn’t seem put off by it. “I don’t know if I want to remember.” Soft and small, the words come out before he knows he’s thinking them, and Bucky watches Steve’s face fall in disappointment.

If he could remember all of it, is it better or worse?

Bucky moves closer to the girl again, her name is Sophie, and he thinks he can still feel the touch of her hand on his skin.

“James, can I take the needle out of your arm? You’re bleeding all over the place.”

Bucky looks down at himself and the steady drip of blood down his arm, and he feels nothing. The thought of her touching him is enough to make him shudder, but she looks at him steadily and waits for him to decide -- she had asked him -- and Bucky forces himself to give her a quick nod because he’s afraid of what will happen if he tried to speak.

Standing still while she hunts for tweezers and gauze is hard, and Bucky watches her with wary eyes as she sorts through the mess of medical supplies on the floor. He still can’t stop himself from cringing when anyone touches him. Steve will pat him on the shoulder, and he has to force himself not to lash out and hurt him -- and Bucky had hurt him -- he had almost broken his jaw when Steve had tried to wake him up from a nightmare once. This girl, her name is Sophie, is much smaller than Steve is. She looks delicate, fragile, and what if he hurts her?

The other doctor had wanted to pick him apart to see what was inside, and he had wanted to hurt her, if only to get her to stop touching him. Bucky can hear someone making a soft keening sound, and he claps a hand to his mouth to make himself stop when he realizes he is the source of it, backing up until his shoulders hit the wall, and sinks to his knees on the floor. He is weak, and they will take him, and he hears that awful pain-filled sound again, and Bucky shuddered in horror at the thought of it.

He is Bucky now. He has a name. He is a person. Not a thing to be used, and then tossed away like a toy after a child had tired of it. Steve has told him this over and over, and while Bucky wants to believe him, he no longer knows how. Bucky chokes back a sob as despair washed over him, covering his face with his hands when he hears the sound of glass crunching underfoot. The drug has left him a cowardly thing, and he just keeps his eyes tightly closed because he cannot bear to look.

When the hard hands and expected blows don’t come he finally risks a look, and that’s when he sees that she has knelt down next to him. When Bucky shrinks back from her, the girl looks down at the gloves on her hands, then she pulls them off and tosses them aside. Her fingers are soft on his skin as she gently tugs his hand down from his face, and Bucky can feel them skim along his jaw, his stubble rasping against her skin as she tucks a lock of hair that had fallen in his eyes behind his ear, making him shiver in reaction to the unexpected touch. Bucky watches as she turns his arm over and pulls the needle out, and there is a slight pressure on his skin as she neatly bandages it, and somehow, it is all right. She feels safe to him. Sophie, he thinks, and Bucky recalls her words to the other doctor in the hall and how she said that no one would touch him from now on. He just stares when she holds out a hand out to him to help him up, before he reaches out and gingerly takes it with his left one, careful not to crush her fingers, soft pressure against cold metal, as he struggles to his feet. Exhaustion staggers him, and Bucky blinks in surprise when she just moves closer to him and slips an arm around his waist to help him keep his balance. Before he knows what he’s doing he drops his head to hers and rests his cheek on top of her head with a sigh. Steve is giving him a shocked look that has Bucky closing his eyes so he doesn’t have to see, and he leans into her harder.

He can feel the drug they had given him still burning through him, and part of him longs to give in to it and just sleep, but his dreams are riddled with pain and he is afraid.

They end up in his room. Steve had half carried him, and Bucky collapses face down on the bed with a grunt and thinks he never wants to move again. He can hear Sophie and Steve talking in soft voices, and he raises his head up to look at them, at her.

“Stay.” Bucky winces at the plea in his voice, but she just nods as she reaches out and brushes the hair out of his face.

“Let me change real quick.” Sophie smiled when he frowned at her. “I’m a little gross right now. I’m gonna hose myself off and get some clean clothes.”

Bucky just frowned harder at that. It’s his blood that is splattered on her shirt and on her hands, and it leaves him feeling like he has done something _wrong,_ and he buries his face back in the pillow. He feels the bed settle when she sits next to him, he can feel his heartbeat pick up as she moves closer, but Sophie just runs a hand over his hair, sifting her fingers slowly through the tangles in a soothing motion that has him shifting closer to her as sleep drags at him.

“I’ll be right back. I promise.” Sophie can feel him go tense under her fingers, but he says nothing, so she ruffled his hair lightly, and goes to change. Bucky feels her stand, and he rolls over on his back so he can watch her. He doesn’t want her to _go_ at all, so he sits up and stares at the door and waits. Bucky has no reason to believe her. That she will keep her word to him, but she comes back in the room scrubbed clean of blood, and wearing what looks like one of Steve’s t-shirts to sleep in. It hangs on her like a dress, and a pair of shorts that are rolled at the waist, and still hang down to her knees.

Bucky lies back as he watches her nervously, and holds out his hand, and waits to see what she will do. Sophie took his hand and laid down next to him. Close, but not touching, and Bucky settles closer to her without letting himself think too hard about why he’s doing it, and he thinks as he drifts off to sleep that he feels like he is not alone.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> There's a look into the past, Steve makes a mom joke, Sam demands breakfast, and Bucky and Sophie have a talk. 
> 
> I promise that the sexy parts, and all the awkwardness of the ABO universe is coming. Pun intended. But other things have to happen before the sexy-times do.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to say thanks to everyone that read this and left a comment or kudos. It makes my brain explode with happiness every single time that I get kudos or a comment. I love all you guys!!!
> 
> On another note... 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: There are mentions of rape, Omegas being treated as second-class citizens at times, and a brief description of suicide. Hopefully, that covers everything.

_Brooklyn, New York --- 1938 --- Bucky_  

* * *

“Steve! Steve, _Steve!”_ The repetition of his name is punctuated by the front door opening and then slamming shut, and Steve lowers the newspaper that he’d been reading to look at his friend. The Alpha pheromones are practically painting the air blue with Bucky’s cedar and clove scent, that along with the tang of cigarette smoke and whiskey gives Steve a pretty good idea what his friend had been up to. Bucky has his back to the door, and the oddest look on his face before it splits into the biggest shit-eating grin that Steve has ever seen in his _life_ , but he has to admit he’s kinda curious now what’s got Bucky so spun up.

“What the hell happened to you?” Steve asked him. It’s a fair question; Bucky’s hair is sticking up and his shirt has one tail hanging out of his pants, and his face flushes red under Steve’s scrutiny.

_“What?”_ Steve demanded impatiently as he watches Bucky blushing harder, because Bucky didn’t embarrass easily, so this really ought to be good.

“Okay, so me and the guys were walking home from the bar, and I,” Bucky paused for dramatic effect. “I smelled an Omega.”

Steve groaned and rolled his eyes. “So what? My _mom_ was an Omega. They’re not exactly falling off trees in this neighborhood, but there’s some around. Margaret Murray was in our grade before her ma made her quit school?”

“Never talk about your ma and say the word Omega in the same sentence,” Bucky said with a scandalized look.

“Well, she was,” Steve said with a huff of laughter as he watched Bucky squirm.

“Shut up,” Bucky said, then got back on track and smirked at Steve. “And the difference was that this Omega was in _heat._ ”

“You fuckin’ liar.” Steve snorted in disbelief. “There’s no way some Omega was just walking around like … like ... _that_ \-- and how would you know what one smelled like anyway?”

Bucky was blushing so hard it felt like the tips of his ears were on fire. “First off, they weren’t walking around wiseass, they were in this fancy ass car driving by -- and second of all, it was like something out of a blue movie. The first whiff of ‘em and any Alpha around was panting like a dog.”

“Like that’s any different than normal for you,” Steve muttered as he picked up his paper ready to dismiss this for a tall-tale in favor of Dodger baseball stats when Bucky ripped the newspaper out of his hands, ignoring his yelp of outrage.

“It’s different because when I scented ’em -- I um -- I think I almost knotted,” Bucky said with sheepish huff of laughter.

Steve studied him for a long minute, taking in the wide eyes and red face before giving Bucky a narrow look.

“Swear it,” he demanded.

Bucky gave a quick nod and crossed himself. “Right hand to God, Stevie. I swear it.”

“Holy shit,” Steve whispered. “What did they smell like?”

Bucky came over and flopped down on the couch and leaned his head back with a happy sigh as he closed his eyes. “Kinda hard to explain it, but sorta like flowers and something spicy.”

“Spicy flowers?” Steve said skeptically.

Bucky cracked an eye open to look over at him. “Spicy flowers rolled in sex, maybe? I got hard so fast I think my dick has a permanent imprint on it from the button on my pants.”

Steve huffed a laugh, then gave him a thoughtful look. “Do you ever think about what it’d be like to bond with someone? I mean besides the sex part of it.”

“I dunno, Steve. I never tried to knot before this, so I think that the sex is a pretty damn big part of it,” Bucky said with a lazy smile, and watched as Steve turned pink at the vulgar comment, but he gives in after a minute when Steve just keeps staring at him with an unimpressed look on his face. “What Alpha doesn’t think about it? It’s supposed to be the best thing that can ever happen to you, so sure I’ve thought about it.”

“What if they was meant to be yours?” Steve asked.

“Then they should have probably stopped the car.” Bucky said with a snort. He can practically see the wheels turning in Steve’s head now, and gives him a nudge with his shoulder. “You’re as Alpha as I am, they could have been yours.”

Steve opened his mouth, then closed it on what he was thinking, and gives Bucky a genuine smile. “I think that one day you’ll find your bond-mate, Buck. I really do.”

Bucky wants to laugh it off. To say that it isn’t likely or that until it happens he’s perfectly content fucking his way through all the contenders until he does find them.

Truthfully, most of the fellas that Bucky worked with would razz him to death for even thinking otherwise, because admitting that an Alpha wanted an Omega to _bond_ with instead of just how good it would feel to fuck and knot one? That shit would never end. An actual mating-bond was one of those things that was usually talked about in hushed voices that were filled with longing by young girls. Men, wanted to lay claim; to fuck and bite and knot. To come out and say you wanted more wasn’t something that you bandied about in the corner bar or at the docks while you broke your back under the hot sun. But right now, while the unseen Omega’s delicate scent still danced along his nerves, and thinking about how he’d been so damn hard that he’d given more than one alley a desperate look on the way home, and it had taken more willpower than it should have to not give in to the urge to jerk himself off in public.

Hell, Bucky can feel his dick give an interested twitch at just the memory of their scent, and in a few minutes he’ll get a bath and take care of things, and it’ll all be all right again. So, as much as he’d like to give Steve a typically glib answer to his question, Steve knows him better than anyone and Bucky won’t lie to him about this.

“Do you really think that it’s like people say? That you’ll love them so much that you really can’t live without them?” Is what he asks Steve instead, and Bucky knows that at heart his friend is an incurable romantic like that, and won’t judge him for it -- and Bucky wants to roll his eyes when Steve just gives him a happy look and nods, but he can’t burst Steve’s bubble of happiness like that. Bucky can’t quite meet Steve’s eyes, and just makes himself say it. “Who wouldn’t want someone to love them like that?”

* * *

_Davis, West Virginia -- 2010 --- Sophie_

* * *

 “I am going to punch you in the _vagina_ if I find you that you had sex in my house,” Sophie mumbled around the mouthful of bobby-pins she was using to help her sister pin the veil to her curly hair. “I’m serious, Olivia. That is just fucking nasty.”

Olivia gave her twin an angelic smile. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, and even if I _did_ , I’d never be dumb enough to fess up to it. Duh.”

“I swear to god, I am going to have sex in every single room of your place while you guys are on your sex vacation, oh, I mean _honeymoon_. See how you like it.”

“I don’t think it actually counts as sex if you’re doing it with yourself.” Olivia ignored her sister’s outraged squawk as she adjusted the flowers in Sophie’s dark hair before pulling back to look at her. “It’s going happen some day, you know?”

“What’s gonna happen?” Sophie asked absently as she fiddled with the pale yellow roses in her braid. “Me killing you for being a nasty person and stinking up my apartment with mating pheromones?”

“Well, possibly that, because someone should be getting laid at your place,” Olivia laughed as she watched her sister’s head snap up to meet her eyes, but kept going before Sophie could interrupt her, “but I meant that someday you’ll meet the person that you can’t do without, and then I can bring up this conversation and gloat. Quietly, because I’m super cool like that, but in my mind I’ll be thinking smug thoughts.”

Sophie rolled her eyes. “Okay, let’s be real, Livvy. You don’t have a cool bone in your body, let alone the ability to keep anything to yourself. And I don’t have anything against love or marriage, it’s the just the whole bonding for life thing that I just don’t get,” Sophie said with a shrug. “I know that Riley loves you. Strangers walking down the street can tell Riley would walk through fire for you. But bonding is forever, and most things don’t last forever.” And Sophie wants to smack herself for being a awful bitch, and a shitty sister for bringing all this up on Livvy’s wedding day, but Olivia is just grinning at her now.

“But some things do last, just look at Mom and Da,” Olivia laughed at the look on her sister’s face. “And one of these days, you are going to be the one falling in love and maybe even _bonding_ , and just being happy, because it’s not scary if you love them, it’s the best thing you’ll ever feel in your life. You do remember happy, don’t you?”

“I’m not unhappy,” Sophie said in exasperation, “and I’m not going around being all down with love.”

“Not all Alphas are like the pieces of shit that hurt David,” Olivia said quietly. “I know that you know that. We’re the daughters of an Alpha-Omega bonded pair.”

“I know that, but what if it goes wrong?” Sophie made an unhappy sound. “It’s not you and Riley that I have doubts about anyway, it’s _me_. I don’t know how to just open myself up like that to another person. How can you trust someone like that, with everything, and know they won’t hurt you?”

Olivia gave her twin a hard hug, and kissed her forehead. “I love you. You are lovable, and trust me on this, you will find that one person that you can’t live without, and they will love you more than anything, just like you’ll love them. Even if you are a total asshole”

“And then, I’m going to bone them in every room of your house,” Sophie said with an evil smile. “But first we have to hurry up or Riley is going to think that you chickened out and left him standing at the altar.”

* * *

 

Bucky woke up slowly, and for once, nothing hurt and he felt rested and clear headed -- and the sheer normalcy of it is almost enough to send him into a damn panic-attack anyway, and wasn’t that just a hell of a thing? That it had been so goddamn long since it had happened, he had forgotten normal.

He had forgotten what it was like to wake-up and not be in pain or not know where the hell he is or who he is or not to be afraid and alone, and he had to close his eyes against the burn of tears because Bucky’d be damned if he’d fucking cry over feeling okay. The drugs had burned out of his system, _fucking doctors_ , and the slight fever he’d been running from his rut was now gone. Along with the skin crawling urge to hump everyone in sight, and the need to growl at Steve, Sam, anything that moved. _Thank you god_.

It was still dark, but the light had that soft-edge of morning to it, and it was more than enough light for him to see that the reason he was so warm was the girl that was in his bed. The girl that he was currently wrapped around like an octopus. Dark hair was obscuring most of her face as he cocked his head to look at her, but the girl -- her name was Sophie -- was still sleeping peacefully, and Bucky’s grateful that he can remember Steve telling him about the plan to bring in the Omega to help him get his ruts under control or else he’d have likely panicked by now, and there would have already been a Bucky-sized hole in wall from where he’d have torn through it in a blind panic to get away.

Bucky hadn’t been completely on board with the whole Omega idea to begin with, and to say that HYDRA had left him with bad memories of Omegas in general, would have been the understatement of the fucking century. And _now_ , thanks to Zola’s bastardized version of the serum, his brain had healed from the electroshock enough that Bucky could remember being tortured repeatedly when he had refused to breed with the various Omegas that different scientists had paraded before him.

It was one of the few things they hadn’t been able to break him with, no matter what they had done, and they had done a lot. They had done _plenty_ , and Bucky has to work to control his breathing as he fights for control. When they couldn’t get him to breed on his own, they had brought out the drugs, and then other Alphas with the idea that another Alpha challenging him over the right to mate would be enough to get him to do it. If he lived a thousand years he would never be able to forget what those animals had done to that poor Omega before they had finally killed her. The fact that he hadn’t fucking raped anyone is a pretty low bar, and probably not anything he should be slapping himself on the back about, but HYDRA had gotten him to do so much other shit that Bucky would let himself take some satisfaction from it because there were things he could live with, and things he couldn’t. Rape would go under the heading of things he couldn’t, and Bucky was still grateful for it.

So yeah, he had had some doubts about Steve’s latest idea on how to get him on his feet again, but Bucky had to admit that this was the best he could remember feeling since Steve had found him, so maybe his friend wasn’t full of shit after all. Bucky had read the articles that Sam had given him on Omega/Alpha relationships, and how the presence of an Omega was shown to keep the more normally hotheaded Alpha in control, and he wasn’t sure what to think about it really.

Steve’s mother was the only Omega he’d known, and Sarah’s bondmate had died in the war. It was said that the Omega of the pair wouldn’t survive a severed bond, and Bucky’s own mother had said once that she thought that Sarah had only been able to go on because she was carrying Steve at the time when Joseph Rogers had died. Sarah had told both of the young Alphas that bonding with Joe had been the best choice she had ever made. That nothing could compare to bonding with the one you loved.

Privately, Bucky thought there was a deep sadness in Sarah that she took a lot of trouble to hide from the world, especially Steve. When the tuberculosis had finally gotten the better of her, Bucky had wondered if there was a part of her that was glad to be able to finally give up.

When Bucky and Steve were growing up, and an Omega came of age they would be kept separate from mixed company, and locked firmly away from any Alpha that wasn’t a potential suitor. The sad fact of it was that since Omegas were the least common among their Alpha and Beta counterparts they were considered prized, and almost always were married off as soon as possible. Usually to a much wealthier family. Whether they wanted it or not wasn’t even a consideration. It had been a point of pride for Sarah Rogers that she had married for love, had chosen Joseph and gone against her family’s wishes to marry him and had made the trip from Ireland with not much more than the clothes on her back. It had always made him glad that his little sisters had been Betas, and would never have to be put in that situation, and that Bucky as an Alpha wouldn’t have to worry about getting stuck in a marriage that no one wanted.

Maybe people were onto something with the calming effect, because Bucky’s feeling steadier than he has in a long time, and all he had done was sleep with her. And they had _only_ slept, because even thinking of things like that made his heart beat faster and not in a good way. Bucky manages not to flinch when he sees the girl open her eyes, but it’s a near thing.

Sophie watches Bucky carefully pull back away from her, and turns to face him. “How are you feeling this morning, James?” She can see that he’s turning the question over in his mind and smells the distress in his scent get sharper. Sophie inches closer to him, and then gently tucked a lock of hair behind his ear, and feels him take a deep breath to steady himself.

“The sedation has worn off, and I’m feeling rested.” The phrasing of what he had said smacks of a status report to a handler, and Bucky closes his eyes, disgusted with himself. “I slept pretty well for a change. Thank you for staying with me,” he tried again, this time making an attempt to sound more like a regular person would, and he feels rewarded when Sophie smiles at him.

“I live for coffee in the morning,” Sophie said as she sat up. “Why don’t you try and get a little more sleep, and I’ll wake you up for breakfast.”

Bucky just watches her for a long minute. Her hair is a wild mess, and it makes her fair skin almost glow against the black curls tangled around her shoulders, and she’s waiting for him to answer, and now he’s just _staring_ at her and Bucky feels a blush start to heat up his cheeks and mumbles that he’ll be out in a while.

Bucky waits until he hears the door close to pull her pillow to him and buries his face in the soft fabric, and he is lulled back to sleep by the scent of oranges and sunlight and Sophie

* * *

 “Rough night, Sophie?” Sam asked with a laugh when Sophie staggered into the kitchen and made a bee-line straight to the coffee pot. Sophie added cream to her coffee then took a big drink before giving Sam the bird, but she smiled at Steve because he looks worried.

“James probably slept for about six hours before he woke-up. Then he made a grumbly noise at me just now before he rolled over and went back to sleep.”

Sam made a I’m not worthy bow to her, and Steve laughed then blew out a breath, the relief had him sagging in his chair. “That’s definitely the most he’s slept at any one time since I brought him here.”

“That’s one of the first things we’re going to get worked out. It’s hard for anyone to keep their head on straight when they’re running on no sleep for weeks at a shot,” Sophie said covering a jaw-cracking yawn as she poured a second cup of coffee after quickly downing the first one.

“Are you okay? You look beat,” Steve asked, concern making his brow crinkle as he watched her.

“I’m fine,” Sophie said as she walked over and gave his shoulder a shake when he just kept watching her with worried blue eyes. “I just need some more coffee and food. It’s tougher to keep someone calm while they’re sleeping versus when they’re awake.” At the puzzled look Steve gives her she tries to explain it. “Most people, and in particular, I mean Alphas, don’t like to feel out of control of themselves. So, when you’re awake you make a conscious effort to keep your shit together as best you can, even when it’s hard for you to do it. When a person is sleeping that control over themselves is gone, and that’s when their subconscious deals with all the things that they’ve pushed aside during the light of day to keep said control. And that’s when you get the nightmares, and all the other things that wake you up screaming in the middle of the night.”

“Sophie, are you okay?” Steve asked again, and if anything he looks more worried about her now than when she first walked in the room.

“Steve, stop worrying,” Sophie said with a laugh, thinking that Steve has to be one of the most genuinely kind people she’s ever met as he keeps watching her, and they need to get this cleared up now. “For me, it’s more or less like exercising. If you do a lot of it you burn more energy, and need to refuel more often. And no matter what you might think, or what shithead over there told you, I can’t control what people are feeling. I’m just able to reflect my emotions back at them, and even then, only to a certain extent if they’re open to it. It’s more like offering comfort when one of your friends is really upset about something or like you’d give someone you care about a hug when they’re feeling sad. Just on a more primal level, like something you know is true without the words ever being spoken. Like how a child knows a parent will keep them safe from harm without being told, or that someone that you really love will never let you go.”

“So, you’re just making him feel _safe_?” Steve asked hollowly, feeling sick, as if it didn’t matter that his heart had just broken into a thousand pieces, because Bucky had kept him safe their whole damn lives, and Steve couldn’t even get this right.

Sophie took his hand in hers. “Feeling safe is probably one of the most underrated feelings out there if you don’t have it.” Steve flinched noticeably at her words, and she needs to make him understand that it is nothing that he’s doing wrong . “I have no doubt that he remembers much more about you than he’s letting on, it’s just that they conditioned him so that remembering his past was a painful thing for him to do. James doesn’t associate me with anything at all right now, other than the fact that as an Omega I probably smell good to him and that I mean him no harm, and that I mean it when I say that I want to help him. I can sense strong emotions in Alphas, just like any other Omega can, but I can’t project anything to them if it’s not the truth for me.”

Sophie watched Steve’s face fall even more, and it feels like she’s just kicked a puppy as sadness rolls over him, and she gave his fingers a squeeze in response. If she tries to make him feel better as she does it, Steve doesn’t protest it this time, and lets her hold his hand for a minute before he pulls back.

“It’s not anything you’re doing or not doing,” Sophie said to him softly. “The fact he’s having more problems interacting with you than anyone else isn’t your fault either. It’s just that you stir up more feelings than he can deal with right now. We’ll get him straightened out.”

“I will give you one million dollars if you make biscuits and gravy,” Sam said after a minute, giving Sophie a bug-eyed look to break the tension, and it works when Steve and Sophie both laugh at him.

“Nope,” Sophie drawled, exaggerating her accent, and then she smirked at him over her coffee cup. “That’s such a southern food cliché anyway. And besides that, you don’t _have_ a million dollars.”

“Please, Sophie. It’s been forever,” Sam begged, then he gave her a sad, sad face.

“You’re whining like a child,” Steve said in disbelief, then just laughed when Sam turned the expression on him. “The Falcon is whining like a two-year old over a breakfast food.”

Sam just shrugged at that. “And I’m cool with it. You haven’t eaten her cooking or you’d be right here along with me.”

Sophie rolled her eyes at Sam. “I don’t have the stuff I’d need for --"

It’s all she gets out before Sam is up so fast his chair almost tips over, and he is rummaging through the fridge with all the intensity of a man looking for gold. He makes a triumphant noise and tosses a large package wrapped in white butcher-wrap on the counter with a thud before he goes back to hunt for butter and eggs.

“I smell a set-up,” Steve whispered to Sophie as they watched Sam dig out baking sheets, along with a skillet and a large mixing bowl.

“I think you’re right, and just so we’ve got this straight, Samuel Wilson, I am not cooking breakfast for you every day.” Sophie said loudly, and tried to give him a stern look along with the warning, but she just loses it at the look on Steve’s face when Sam breaks into a victory dance that he ends with a flourish by doing a bump and grind with the refrigerator door.

“That was just so wrong.” Steve shuddered. “What did my poor refrigerator ever do to you?”

“Wouldn’t you like to know?” Sam replied with a leer, then he gave Steve a wink that had the other man covering his eyes as he laughed.

* * *

Sophie had Sam’s greasy food of choice cooked, and was just waiting on the biscuits to come out when she hears Bucky coming down the hallway towards them. She can feel a nervous tension so thick that is almost hanging over him in cloud, and she wonders at the cause of it. Bucky had seemed fine when she had gotten up. Just grunted at her before rolling over and going back to sleep when she had told him that she’d still be here when he got up, and he goes to the cupboard and takes out a coffee cup before heading to the coffee maker and pours himself a cup without saying a word.

The expectant, almost hungry look on Steve’s face is the answer to her question about why Bucky is feeling so jittery now, and she makes a mental note to talk with him about it later. Watching people that you care deeply about get their hopes dashed with every word that comes out of your mouth can’t be a pleasant experience, and while Bucky may not remember all of their past together, obviously, he remembers _enough_ , and it’s hurting them both.

Steve had neatly set the table for four already, and pushed the chair across from him back with his foot as he beamed a smile at Bucky. “Hey pal, saved ya a seat. Sophie is making us breakfast, and according to Sam it’s a life altering experience.” Bucky doesn’t quite meet his eyes, but he does come over to the table and sit down. He ignored the chair that Steve had offered him though. Steve isn’t sure if it’s because Bucky doesn’t want to have his back to the room or if he just wants to be able to keep Sophie in his line of sight, because Bucky keeps giving her these puzzled looks, sort of like he can’t figure out who she is and why she’s still here.

Which, of course, immediately scares the hell out him, because what if, _oh god_ , Bucky didn’t remember what Steve had told him about her and why she was here. His memory was still sketchy at times, occasionally even on the day to day things, and wasn’t it going to be fun to try and explain the whole thing over to him again?

Steve is yanked from the downward spiral of his thoughts by Sophie putting a steaming plate of biscuits and gravy in front of him, and she gives him a tiny shake of her head (that gives him a weird feeling that she knew what had been going through his mind just then). She goes back for a bowl of oatmeal for Bucky as well, and a platter that is now heaped full of golden brown biscuits. Sophie hands the bowl to Bucky as she sat down next to him, and then she passed the platter of biscuits over to Sam -- who was now wearing a comically stunned expression on his face of a man who had just seen God. And it’s just suddenly all so funny to him as he laughs at the two of them clowning around, and it’s all so _normal_ \-- that Steve finally relaxes as he listens to Sam and Sophie’s back and forth banter, and he makes a conscious effort to not stare at Bucky anymore than he already had been doing.

Sam beamed at Sophie. “I’ll marry you if you agree to cook like this everyday for me.”

“Oh my God, could you picture the two of us married? I’m not sure who would drive who nuts first,” Sophie said with a snort of laughter.

“You’d definitely drive me crazy first,” Sam muttered under his breath as he went to work on his second plate of food. “You’re way too short, Omegas just smell weird to me, and let’s not forget your appalling taste in music.”

“Piss off! Not everyone organizes their sock drawer according to color, you anal fucker. And besides that, I just made you breakfast,” Sophie yelped indignantly, then stuck her tongue out at Sam.

Sophie ignores Sam chewing with his mouth open trying to gross her out as she drizzled honey on a buttered biscuit, and passed it to Bucky. He raised a brow, and gave her a curious look before he took it from her almost gingerly, like she had just handed him something that was potentially dangerous instead of something to eat. Bucky gave her a slight nod, and he muttered a thank you, and Sophie watched him give the biscuit a sniff before he took a small bite. After a second his face brightened and he took a bigger bite of it then licked a drop of honey off his thumb. Steve had said that Bucky still had trouble keeping food down at times, so she thought oatmeal would be a better choice for him.

The funny part was the fact that he’d carefully placed the paper napkin in his lap after he had sat down, and was now eating with better manners than Emily Post would have used. Bucky had finished the first biscuit she’d given him and had gone back for a second, and this time he loaded it with honey until it dribbled out on to his plate a swirl of gold _._

_Someone had a sweet-tooth_ , Sophie thought, as she hid a smile in her coffee cup.

Bucky was doing his best to ignore the fact that Steve was watching him. He knew that Steve was worried about him. Worried about how Bucky would react in the light of day to being given -- what he privately thought -- amounted to a babysitter. Bucky studied Sophie out of the corner of his eye as she laughed at something Sam was saying to her, and he thinks that maybe it won’t be so bad having someone watching over him if she’s the one doing the watching, because he feels so much more relaxed in her presence than he normally does.

Sam and Steve had both told him that she could help keep things from overwhelming him while he healed from the damage that HYDRA had done to him. Bucky had thought they had been full of shit. It just wasn’t possible, calming Omega influence or not. HYDRA had fucked with his head until he didn’t know black from white or up from down. Hell, part of the time he still couldn’t always remember what his own mother had looked like -- but what he had felt had always been under his control. It was the one thing that they couldn’t take away from him, no matter how hard they had tried.

Bucky had hated until he thought he’d choke on it. Had been in so much pain that he had begged them to just kill him in one of his more lucid moments between sessions in their torture chamber. Had cried until he thought that grief was all that was left to him besides the pain and anger, but now, as he watched Sophie out of the corner of his eye and caught her scent on the air, Bucky is starting to think that, just maybe, Sam and Steve had been onto something and he was going to be proved wrong and -- Bucky realizes that Steve had asked him a question while he had zoned out, and he feels his breath catch in his chest when he sees all of them just _looking_ at him.

Bucky can feel his hands shaking or maybe it’s his whole body, as his nerves start to fray. He has to remain in control of himself now. Bucky could hurt someone, he could hurt her, and he cannot fucking breathe, and _please for the love of god, someone, just make it stop_. That’s when Steve touches his arm, probably in an attempt to try and calm him, and Bucky smacks it away hard as his vision whites out as the panic-attack takes him over.

* * *

 It’s the feel of Sophie’s hands on either side of his face that snap him out of it -- but the fact she is standing right in front of him and touching him, scares the living hell out him all over again. Bucky didn’t remember getting to his feet, but his chair is tipped over behind him and the floor is littered with the remains of their breakfast and broken dishes, and Steve and Sam are conspicuously now gone from the room, leaving him alone with her.

Bucky feels his heart give a hard kick in his chest when he thinks what could have happened to her.

“James, I need you to do what I do,” Sophie took his hand placing it over her heart. “I need you to breathe with me, slow deep breaths. You can do this. I know you can.” His blue eyes are huge and wild as the dart all over the room, and Sophie tightens her fingers on his to get his attention back on her. “Keep your eyes on mine, okay? It’s 2015, and you’re safe. You are safe here with us, and we won’t let anything bad happen to you.”

Sophie watches Bucky fight hard for control, trying to breathe with her, but then he turns white, swallowing hard and she drags him behind her into the bathroom in time for him to lose what little breakfast he had actually eaten.

Bucky throws up until he’s dry-heaving, and he can feel Sophie trying to keep his hair out of the worst of it until he’s finally hanging over the toilet, limp with exhaustion. Sophie flushed the toilet for him before she hands him a glass of water and tells him to rinse and spit, and he follows the order obediently, feeling to damn sick to argue with her. He also can’t quite meet her eyes right now, and that’s when he sees that she has a shallow cut on her hand, the sharp, copper scent of blood mixing with her Omega scent of oranges, and it sends shame is crawling through his belly.

Bucky opens his mouth, closes it with a snap as he thinks his mother would have had his hide for hurting a lady, and it hits him that he’ll never see his mom again. That his family is dead and he never got to say goodbye to any of them. He’d never get to hear his mom tell him that everything would be all right, no matter what the problem was. Would never have his dad give him a hug and tell him that he was proud to be his father. Bucky would never be able to tease his sisters until his mom had had enough and yelled at them all to knock it off, and he just fucking loses it. Bucky cries until he can’t breathe through his nose and his eyes are burning, and Sophie just tugged him into her arms and holds him tight through the whole damn thing. He can feel her stroking his hair and humming softly under her breath to him while she does it.

Sophie tells him that he is free, that he is safe, over and over, until the feeling resonates somewhere deep inside of him, and Bucky wishes that he could believe her. He also thinks that he should get the hell off of her, he’s got to be squashing her, but right now he just wants to feel her hands in his hair, and listen to whatever she is saying instead of having to think anymore.

Bucky wonders if Sophie can read his mind because she just keeps on petting him as she tells him stories about her family. That she has a twin sister, and then about growing up in the mountains of West Virginia. About how she had loved it there, and that getting up in the morning when the mountaintops were still shrouded with fog would always be beautiful to her. Bucky finally sits up, and makes himself look at her. Sophie just smiles at him, golden brown eyes soft as she looks at him, and he wonders why she’s doing this.

“I’m sorry.” Is what he finally says to her though, and he takes her hand to look at the cut on it because as bad as it is that he hurt her, it’s still easier than having her look at him like that right now.

Sophie turned her hand in his, and laced their fingers together. “It’s barely a scratch.” Gave his shoulder a playful nudge with hers. “It got me out of cleaning up. Did you see how big a mess I made?”

Bucky frowned at her then. He could have killed her, and she’s making a joke. “Why are you doing this?”

Sophie got to her feet, and then she offered him her hand. “You needed help.”

It’s not even close to an answer really, all he can do is look up at her while she watches him with those big, serious eyes, she’s not talking about the trashed kitchen now, and he frowns harder at her.

“I could have killed you. I could have --”

“Okay, you can stop right there,” Sophie waved his words off, and sat on the edge of the counter. “Here’s the thing, I won’t lie to you, and I do my best to keep my word when I give it, because no one really forgets when you lie to them or you let them down. And I want you to do me the same courtesy. If you had really wanted to hurt me, would I have walked out of that room alive?”

Bucky scowled at her. “That’s not the point.”

“No, that _is_ the point. I saw the footage of when you fought with Steve and Sam. You could have killed me without breaking a sweat.” Sophie slid off the counter and crouched down in front of him. “So, what stopped you?”

Bucky looks down and he doesn’t answer her, because he doesn’t really have an answer to her question. Or not a good one anyway. After a minute Sophie sat down next to him, and leaned her head on his shoulder, making him flinch, but she is warm and Bucky feels like he will never be warm again, so he lets her stay. He doesn’t get why she has no concerns about being in his personal space when even _Steve,_ who had said that they had been friends all their lives, would hesitate to get this close to him without a damn good reason.

“Why are you doing this?” Sophie doesn’t answer, just leaned into him harder, and this time Bucky gets the idea that she’s the one seeking comfort now, and the idea is just so bizarre he’s not sure what to do with it.

“My sister, the one I told you about earlier? She killed herself.”

Bucky waits for her to say more, but she doesn’t offer any more about it and he tilts his head so he can see her face. “I’m fine.” 

"Really? Because that’s exactly what Olivia said to me the last time I saw her. She was so fucking fine that I had to scrub her brains off the bathroom wall so my mom and dad didn’t have to see what she’d done to herself. So enlighten me, is it that kind of fine?” Sophie growled back at him. 

“I don’t need you to hold my goddamn hand,” Bucky ground out, he ignores the question because he has no intention of answering. “I don’t need anyone to save me.”

Sophie shook her head. “You’re right. You already saved yourself, but I can help you if you’ll let me.” She absently ran her fingertips over the metal plates on his arm, and could feel them shift with his movements as he shivered and wonders how well he can feel it.

“Help me do what? Keep fighting the good fight?” Bucky snapped at her, because his head is killing him, and he is so tired of being afraid all the time, and what does it matter anyway.

_“Yes_. That’s exactly what you do. You keep fighting because then they’ve lost and you’ve fucking _won_. If you can’t think of it like that, then you tell yourself that you’ll get through the next minute and then the one after that, until you can.”

Bucky looked down at her and huffed a soft laugh. “If that’s your version of sweet-talking me, it needs some work.” He can feel the plates in his arm shift in response to her fingers trailing over the cool metal and shivers in reaction. How can she bear to touch him?

“Nah, if I’d been trying to sweet-talk you I’d have called you _sugar_ or a _mhuirnìn_.” Sophie laughed at unimpressed look he was giving her. “Not much use for Gaelic usually but it sure sounds pretty.”

Bucky felt his lips twitch at that. “You’ll have to try harder than that _darlin’_. I must’ve heard Steve’s ma call him that at least once a day ‘til the day she died.”

“It was my da for me, and it was either that or: ‘Dia ár sábháil, Sophia! Where was you head at?’”

“If we’d made her mad enough to say that it followed by, _amadán._ But she usually saved that for when Steve had gotten his ass handed to him by someone twice his size, and we both were black and blue.”

Sophie purposely kept her eyes down and kept him talking. “If Steve was the one who’d gotten into a fight, why were you hurt too?”

Bucky snorted derisively at that. “He’s my best friend. Why would I stand by and watch him get his ass kicked when I could …” His voice trailed off and he studied her warily. “How did you do that? What did you do?”

I didn’t _do_ anything.”

“That was you. I can’t usually remember things very well, let alone conversations that people have had,” Bucky was watching her suspiciously, because holy shit, he can picture the whole thing like it had happened yesterday.

Sophie shook her head. “You do remember, James. That was you, telling me a memory. A memory of yours, and it was all you. Omegas normally have a calming influence on Alphas, so that’s how I can help you. I can help you stay in control until you’re healed up and can do it on your own. If you’ll let me.”

Bucky studied Sophie for a long minute. The look she is giving him practically radiates sincerity, and she reminds him so much of Steve when they were little kids that it makes Bucky want to laugh. Sophie and Steve look nothing alike but they both evidently share a core of hardheadedness that goes all the way to the bone.

 “I don’t do so well with keeping my shit together anymore. So, maybe you could help me?” Bucky watches Sophie's eyes light up at his words, and he can't help giving her a ghost of a smile. 


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This is kind of a transitional chapter for Bucky and Sophie, and a little short. The next chapter is going to earn the rating, and should be up in a few days.
> 
>  
> 
> Warning: This chapter contains mentions of rape and the abuse of a child.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky talks to his doctor and comes to a realization. Or several. Sam makes a discovery, and Bucky and Sophie have a talk.

“I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” Bucky can feel his hands starting to shake, and he closes his eyes and tries to keep his breathing even. He can feel Dr. Asangé calmly waiting for him to regain control, and it actually helps, because he knows that she believes that he can do it. Bucky had had so many panic-attacks in the beginning when he’d first started seeing her that one of the first thing he had learned from her was how to ground himself and to stay in the moment. To stay himself and not disassociate. It was less of a struggle than it used to be, but Bucky was fighting for it now

The first therapist that Bucky had seen had been a total prick. And that’s not exaggerating how bad it was because the asshole had asked him at his last session how Bucky was dealing with being the cause of so many deaths, and then essentially betraying his country.

Yeah, that fucking guy had been a real prince.

 It still kinda makes Bucky want to laugh thinking about it, because when he’d come back from his last appointment with the man -- hollow-eyed and still shaking -- Sophie had asked him what the hell had happened, and afterwards she had tracked the doctor down and unloaded on the man with both barrels. Sam had initially been kinda horrified, and he had told Sophie that she couldn’t go around telling people to fuck off. Until she had told him what said asshole had asked Bucky, and then Sam had walked around for a day muttering under his breath that the _shrink-who-shall-not-be-named_ should have his damn license revoked.

 About a week later, after conferring with Sam about it, Sophie had introduced him to his current therapist, Dr. Nila Asangé.

* * *

 Dr. Asangé was in her late fifties, with dark hair and eyes. Her parents had settled in France after leaving India when she was just a child, and you could still hear the French lilt in the Omega doctor’s voice even though she had lived in the United States for the last twenty years. Nila had been one of the doctors in the psychiatric hospital where Sophie had done her residency, and when Sophie had asked Bucky to meet with the other woman, thinking that she would be a good fit for him, Bucky couldn’t really think of a good enough reason to say no to her. Even though what he’s seen of what Sophie and Sam call therapy has been just fucking awful, Bucky gives them the benefit of the doubt -- and is glad he did because in the three months that he’s been seeing her, it has really helped.

Dr. Asangé had asked him at their first meeting to call her by her given name, and Bucky had hemmed and hawed, stammered, and then he had still called her Dr. Asangé and ma’am through their next two meetings _(it really doesn’t help that her Omega scent of lavender and roses remind him of his grandmother_ ). Finally Nila had finally given him an exasperated look that Bucky can remember getting from his own mom at times, and told him that he was making her feel ancient, and to please just call her Nila. 

And Nila had been a good fit for him. She was old enough to understand where he was coming from when he had problems adjusting to the time he was living in now, and she been amazing at showing Bucky ways to cope with his panic-attacks. Bucky had listened to her go on and on about the benefits of exercise and meditation to the point that Steve and Sam now drag Bucky running with them every morning. Bucky could, grudgingly, admit there was something freeing being able to run at full speed alongside Steve in the cool hours of the early morning. Sam called them both assholes when they lapped him on either side, and Bucky had only been a little envious of their inside joke. 

The added side benefit of all the exercise was that it helped with the nightmares. Bucky had read that regular sleep habits would help him be able to concentrate and focus on keeping calm as well, and he’d been skeptical at first -- but now he thinks that people were really onto something with this regular sleep shit because he now that he was actually getting some sleep he was able to recall things a lot easier.

 Unfortunately, that meant he could recall most everything now. Bucky told her that he should have fought harder, should have done more, that he should have been able to help the Omegas escape, and now, and now -- Nila just asked him what he thought had kept him from having sex with any of the Omegas that HYDRA had tried to get him to breed with. Bucky feels like he’s going to pass out, because he can’t fucking breathe, but he slowly brings it back under control. But he’s so goddamn mad now he could spit nails.

 “Did you just fucking ask me _why_ I didn’t rape anyone?” Bucky can feel the arm of the chair he’s sitting on give with a brittle snap, and he jolts at the sound. “These days everyone is so concerned with people giving their consent for every damn thing, and you’re asking me why I wouldn’t fucking _rape_ someone?”

 “No, I asked what kept you from having sex with any of them. You’re an Alpha, and it’s basic biology to want to have sex with an Omega that was in heat. You’re the one who’s using the word rape.”

Bucky shot to his feet and stalked over to the window. He wants to put his fist though it. “I didn’t rape anyone because it’s wrong. Me not helping them? That was fucking _wrong_. Jesus Christ, Nila. I would think that you, as an Omega, wouldn’t need to be told that.”

 “Do you blame them for not being able to get themselves out?” Nila asked, ignoring Bucky’s outburst.

 Bucky gaped at her in disbelief. “Is there a fucking point to this? Most of them were drugged to the gills or had the shit beaten out of them until they couldn’t fight back. But they knew how to be afraid, though. One guy pissed himself when they brought me in the room, he was so scared.”

 “The point is you just described the same treatment that you were given as well. You say that _they_ were afraid. That _they_ were drugged and beaten. James, _you_ were drugged. _You_ were beaten. HYDRA gave _you_ no choice. None. You had me read your file before I became your doctor, and there was nothing that you could have done to help them. HYDRA tortured you, they took away your memories, and they still couldn’t get you to hurt those Omegas.”

 Bucky eyes burn. “I should have tried harder. The things I let them do --”

 “You _should_ have gone home after the war and lived your life, but they took that choice away from you as well. You’re allowed to be human and grieve for that. It’s okay to be angry about it. And it’s normal to feel guilt for past actions. But don’t take the blame for things that you had no control over, James. You’ve come so very far and they taken enough from you, don’t you think? Don’t let them take anything else.” Nila’s dark brown eyes are filled with sorrow, and an infinite compassion that cuts him to the bone. 

“When Steve first found me and I was so sick and messed up, I kept thinking that it would have been better if I had died in the fight. Instead, Steve almost let me beat him to death rather than keep fighting. And then afterwards? All I wanted was for it to be over. I was sicker than hell and everything hurt, and there were so many days that I would wake up and wish that I hadn’t.” Bucky felt the tears spill over as he flexed his hand and he watched the plates in his forearm shift. “I didn’t think that would ever change, didn’t think that there was enough left of me to even try.”

“And how do you feel now?” 

Bucky really thinks about it. There are still days when he wants to hide in the closet, to hide in the dark and never come out, but yesterday Buck had sat around eating ice cream with Sophie, Sam, and Steve, and when Sophie had shown them a video of her and her cousin at her sister’s wedding doing a drunken, off-key duet, Bucky had laughed for the first time in days and realized that he was actually having fun, and the world didn’t end while he was doing it.

 “I still have a lot of bad days … but there are good days now. Days that I’m really glad that I didn’t die.”

 Nila smiled at him. “And there will be a lot more of those good days. You have your whole life ahead of you now, James. Don’t you think that it’s time to start living that life?” 

“I don’t know how,” Bucky finally choked out, then he gave a watery laugh when Nila grumbled _“bullshit”_ and then she gave him a hard hug.

 “They say that the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step,” Nila said as she handed him a tissue. “You’re getting there. Now, blow your nose and let’s talk about those personal choices, and how you’re doing with identifying your wants and needs.” 

Bucky groaned. “Really?”

“Yes, really,” Nila said with a laugh.

* * *

 All bullshit aside, Bucky does remember what it is to want things, but right now he thinks it sucks. Truth be told, he’s always remembered wanting things -- it’s just been so fucking long since Bucky has been allowed to _have_ \-- that it’s still overwhelming at times. In the beginning it was all he could do to pick out what to wear for the day or what he wanted to have for lunch without having a complete mental breakdown. Now, Bucky likes deciding things; what he wants to eat for dinner, what he wants to do with his time, where to go if he wants to go outside, and all the other things that go with day to day living.

Nila had told Bucky weeks ago that it was good to identify the things he wants. That it will be a step in reclaiming what Dr. Asangé had called agency. Bucky calls it total bullshit, but he is trying. 

The latest round of _feel-good-about-yourself-rah-rah_ had ended with talk about Bucky being comfortable with his own body, and today Dr. Asangé asked him, point-blank, if he had been able to rub one out yet. Of course Nila had asked if Bucky’d been able to _masturbate_ \-- but call a spade a spade, will ya? And just when the fuck had it become okay for someone to just ask a person shit like that, Bucky had wondered in disbelief. He hadn’t answered her, just blushed bright red, and then gave Nila an incredulous look which the doctor had rightly interrupted as a definite _no_ , so now, Bucky’s weekly homework was to regain familiarity with his body and its needs.

_By touching himself._

Jesus, Mary and Joseph. Bucky hasn’t had much in the way of thoughts about sex for longer than he _(literally_ ) could remember. But now, thanks to a woman that’s old enough to be his mother, and the future’s dumb ass notions that anything is obviously fair-fucking-game for a conversation, Bucky can’t keep his mind from circling back to it.

Bucky still sleeps with Sophie on the nights when she stays over, and now with Stark planning some modifications to his arm to fix HYDRA’s more painful ways of keeping him docile and obedient -- Bucky has either been waking up screaming from nightmares on the nights when Sophie isn’t here or else he wakes up frustrated in other ways when she is sleeping next to him. 

Bucky gave a humorless snort as he thought about it, because, yet another way to put it would be waking up so hard a cat couldn’t scratch it, and the worst case of blue-balls that Bucky’s ever had in his life -- and that includes the summer after he’d popped his knot and the slightest breeze was enough to have him rock hard with hand under the sheets more nights than not and he had still been walking around with a perpetual hard-on.

 Just thinking about Sophie like that makes him feel squirmy inside. Bucky had crawled onto Sophie’s lap like a beaten dog the very first time he’d laid eyes on her. He had been so sick from the constant rutting, and then the drugs that they’d dosed him with that he was running on blind instinct at the time, and Sophie had smelled safe to him. Had felt like a home he couldn’t remember, and Bucky had clung onto her like she was the last solid thing in the world. A few months later, it’s no surprise how he feels about Sophie now that he’s gotten to know her so much better. If Bucky could just write it off just as biology or a sort of friendship, he would do it in a heartbeat. But it’s not just biology, not just friendship, it’s just the way Sophie makes him feel. Alive and unbroken -- and when Bucky’s with her everything is just that much better. It has Bucky glaring at his coffee mug and wishing that Steve was around to talk to when Sam comes in the kitchen, and Bucky quickly scrubbed his hand over his face and tried to look like he hadn’t just left therapy and that he’s been crying.

“What did that coffee ever do to you?” Sam finally asked after he’s poured himself a coffee and joined him at the kitchen table.

Bucky blinked at him, opened his mouth, shut it, then thinks to hell with it. “Dr. Asangé thinks that it would be a good idea to get massages. Said it would help with my shoulder being so screwed up.”

It’s a partial truth anyway. Bucky doesn’t want to say that besides the sex shit, that Nila had also told him that Bucky needed to relearn that touching didn’t mean harm, that touch could make him feel good as well. And Nila really had recommended that Bucky try massages for his shoulder, he just leaves out the part about jerking off because that is definitely not what he wants to talk about any more today.

Sam just nodded. “Good idea, but do you feel ready for that?”

“I don’t know,” Bucky said making a sour face, and then shrugged. “The massage part I could probably deal with, except for … the touching part.”

“That’s understandable. Is it anyone touching you or just a stranger?” Sam asked. “A hug or handshake is a hell of a lot different than lying down with your back to someone you don’t know.”

“People I don’t know. I have a hard enough time with people I do know. The idea of letting a stranger ... I just can’t,” Bucky said, relieved that Sam got it and he wasn’t going to have to go into a big, long explanation about it.

“It’s not worth it if the cure just makes the problem worse. Why don’t you just ask Sophie to do it?” Sam asked, then cackled at the scandalized look Bucky gave him. “It’s just a massage, man. It’s not like you’re asking her to examine your boy-parts.”

Bucky could feel his face reddening in a blush that no doubt goes down to his feet, and he can see that Sam is putting two and two together now, and he stifles the urge to smack the positively gleeful look that Sam is giving him right off his smug face. Then Bucky almost has a fucking heart-attack when he hears Sophie say, _‘Ask Sophie to do_ _what’_ directly behind him as she walked over to pour a cup of coffee for herself.

“What?” Sophie asked again when they both just stared at her. James’ face is bright red, and Sam looks like he’s about ready to bust a gut trying not to laugh. _God, men are_ _weird,_ she thought as she took a sip of coffee and waited for one of them to crack, and then maybe say something instead of looking at her like she’d sprouted a second head.

“Barnes says that his doctor thinks he needs his shoulder worked on,” Sam finally said. He leaves out the part where Bucky is scared shitless of the idea of having a stranger touch him, and that’s he isn’t just going to one of the million spas in New York to get one. Sam watches Sophie give them both a suspicious look, but she lets it go, and Sam knows that she susses out the problem from what James isn’t saying about it.

God help her on the other thing though. Sam takes a drink and chokes back the urge to do something crazy, like laugh his ass off because the freaking Winter Soldier is falling for her.

“Sure. I haven’t done any kinesiology stuff since college, but I think I can handle a shoulder massage without making it worse.” Sophie smiled at James, he is blushing so hard now that it looks painful. She thinks that it must be a 1940’s old-fashioned sensibilities thing that is giving him a problem and embarrassing him about it. It’s either that or Sam said something to make James feel weird about it. Given Sam’s love of being a smartass, and the way that James was now glaring like he was trying to kill Sam with the power of his mind it’s a definite possibility, so Sophie tells James to just let her know when he wants to try it.

Bucky waits until Sam gets up to go to the bathroom, and he watches Sophie deliberate between another cup of coffee or a glass of wine, before pouring herself a large glass of red before asking her what’s wrong. Bucky doesn’t say that Sophie doesn’t smell right, even though it’s true. Scenting is not done casually, and it just makes him more aware of _whatever the fuck_ it is that he’s feeling, and there is just no way in hell Bucky was going to admit that he can scent her distress in front of _Sam_. But, Sophie’s usual mellow scent of sun-warmed oranges has a hard, bitter note to it, and there are dark circles under her eyes. Bucky has the fleeting thought that maybe Sophie sleeps better when she’s with him, and it hits him hard that in a way he is closer to her than he ever had been to anyone else. When her eyes light up at the concern it makes his chest feel tight and Bucky pushes the feeling aside with something akin to panic now, because, nope, Bucky’s not feeling anything. “You look like hell.”

“Don’t hold back, James. Tell me how you really feel.” Sophie said dryly.

Bucky rolled his eyes. “How much of my shit have you listened to, Sophie?”

Sophie bit her lip, then shrugged. “One of my first patients has to testify in court soon, and I’m just dreading putting her through any more. Claire was raped by her father when she was thirteen, and because this piece of walking shit has been such a good boy in jail, he’s coming up for possible parole.” James reaches out and takes her hand, and it’s a such a small gesture, a little thing. A little thing, but this man who had been brutalized, and then made to forget everything, again and again, still had such an innate sense of kindness to him that it makes Sophie’s eyes sting, and she wants to bawl like a baby because she can’t remember the last time someone held her damn hand. She gives his fingers a quick squeeze and then tells him the rest of it.

“Claire’s brother walked in on --” Sophie swallowed hard, remembers how Claire had been when they had first met, so ashamed and so afraid. “He’d knotted her as well, and Quinn beat their father almost to death. Their aunt was given custody of them, and I was the therapist that was assigned to Claire by the state. It took a while for her to be able to talk about it, but she finally admitted that he had been doing it to her for years. It would have been enough to keep him in jail for the rest of his miserable life, but since Quinn had beaten him so badly their lawyer ended up settling for a lesser charge to keep Quinn from going to jail.”

“And now he’s getting out.” Bucky said softly, and watches Sophie’s golden, brown eyes light with rage.

“Maybe. Probably. He’s up for parole because he’s been such a model prisoner. More likely it’s who the fucker paid off, but either way it doesn’t change the end result, and the minute he’s out, I know he’ll go after Claire again.” Sophie turned her wineglass with her fingertips, and thinks about throwing it. “Claire is doing so much better now. She doesn’t cringe when people touch her. Doesn’t wake up screaming at night. She’s happy again, she’s realized that she can be happy. Can be okay, because she survived. She survived having her father, the person who should have been keeping her safe, rape her for years, and she’s doing so well now. But if he gets out and comes after her, and he will, she won’t survive it.”

“When they had me testifying at the trial he admitted that he thought that Omegas were the property of their Alpha. It didn’t matter to him that the Omega he was talking about was his own daughter because to him all she was to him, was this thing to be used in whatever way he wanted.” Sophie shivered, thinking about it makes her skin crawl. Can still feel his eyes on her, the way he had looked at her had given her nightmares for months afterwards. “He really hated it when they had an Omega doctor testify against him. Threw a grade-A shit fit when they put me on the stand. The judge finally said he’d be held in contempt of court if he didn’t quit trying to intimidate me with all the shit he was saying.”

Bucky growls low in his throat at the thought of some asshole threatening her before he can stop himself, then blushes red to his ears when Sophie cracks up laughing. “Sorry,” he muttered and ran an unsteady hand through his hair.

“Don’t be.” Sophie grinned at him. “I’ve always wished I could do an Alpha growl like that but when I try it sounds like I’m gargling marbles.”

Bucky smirked at her, then rumbled softly at her to show off and about chokes to death on his wine when Sophie trilled a soft, happy sound back at him. It’s a greeting that’s reserved for the treasured ones in an Omegas life, and he can remember hearing Sarah do the same thing to Steve and him when they were kids when she was in an especially good mood.

Sophie took her glass and stood up and Bucky got up and pulled her in for a hug. He tried and failed not to notice how well she fits in his arms or how soft her hair was against his lips when he pressed a kiss to the top of her head.

Sophie leaned back to look up at him. “Thank you.” James arched a brow at her and gave her a puzzled look, then rolled his eyes when she said she meant for listening to her. Sophie punched his arm lightly. “Ass. I mean it. I’ve been driving myself nuts thinking about all the ways this is going to hell, and it was nice to have someone to talk to. So, thank you, James, and this is where you accept said thanks.” Sophie laid her head against his chest and listened to the steady beat of his heart for a long minute. James had stiffened up at first then relaxed and wrapped her back up in a hug. “And you could also say you want to hang out and watch a movie with me and maybe nap because I really don’t want to be alone tonight.”

Bucky laughed. “Sophie, would you like to eat some pizza with me and watch movies until we fall asleep?”

He waited until she was at the doorway before he said “You’re welcome.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a transitional chapter for the story, and the start of Bucky coming to terms with what has happened to him and how he wants to go on. It also puts Bucky and Sophie on more equal footing, which I felt was necessary for both of them or it was just going to feel like an odd dynamic between them.
> 
> It's possible that I way overthought the whole thing...
> 
> Next chapter will include the following: massages, masturbation and a meltdown. See what I did there?


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bucky takes things in hand. Heh, see what I did there? And then things start to heat up...

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, that I took so long getting this chapter up. I started a new job, and have been crazy busy the last few weeks. Once I get settled into it a little more, and used to the new hours, I'll actually have more time to write than normally do, so I am very excited.
> 
> Warning for this chapter: Mentions of rape, masturbation, some body-horror, and a kiss.

Bucky finally caves in and says yes to having his shoulder worked on about a month later.

* * *

 

Sophie had seen him rolling his shoulder trying to get the joint to pop, and the muscles to let go a few too many times for Bucky to keep brushing her off. At first, Bucky had tried telling her that he was used to _(the pain)_ carrying the extra weight of the metal arm by now -- but Sophie had just arched a brow at that, giving him a very unimpressed look, and then had proceeded to _(nag the hell out of him)_ ask him about it daily until Bucky had finally just given in and said yes.

 Mostly to get her off his ass about it, because Sophie was a persistent little shit.

Sophie is also fucking _devious_ , because she picks a night when Sam and Steve are off doing Avenger stuff, and Bucky can’t use them as an excuse to skip it again. He’s gone with Steve before, when it was HYDRA related, because Bucky will never stop doing everything he can to bring those fucking bastards down, but this was just another round of publicity stuff -- and while it was now public knowledge that Sergeant James Barnes was alive -- Bucky avoided anything press related like the damn plague. He still has nightmares about all the lives he had taken while under HYDRA’s control, and listening to the press talk about what a hero he was made Bucky feel like he was losing what was left of his mind.

So for right now, having to choose between having his back rubbed or talking to the press, the backrub seemed like the lesser to the two evils. Sort of.

 Sophie had made lasagna, one of his favorites, and plied Bucky with a great red wine. Then she had bided her time and waited until Bucky was on the downhill slide into a food induced coma before she asked him again. Because alcohol still _does_ affect him to a certain extent, unlike poor Steve, and Buckly had had just enough to relax him and make him agreeable to most anything. Obviously.

So now, Bucky is taking the hot shower that Sophie had suggested to loosen up, and it hits him that he’s actually fucking _nervous_ about this. And the dumb part is that Bucky’s not even sure why. It’s not like Sophie hasn’t seen him pretty much at his worst before. Panic attacks that had left him so out of his head, that Bucky had no idea where the fuck he is. Waking up from nightmares, crying, screaming, and puking or occasionally all three didn’t leave a lot of room for misplaced pride. Shit, once, Bucky had puked on Sophie when he couldn’t get out of bed fast enough -- which made him really grateful that shit like that didn’t seem to phase her -- because Sophie had just shrugged it off and gotten in the shower once Bucky had calmed down and cleaned herself up. He couldn’t stand the idea of trying to sleep anymore that night, so Sophie had stayed up with him, and they ended up watching Dr. Who until Steve had gotten up for the day. Bucky and Steve had both whole-heartedly agreed that the Weeping Angels were creepy as fuck when they’d kept watching the show for the next several (weeks) days. They both really liked the eleventh doctor, and when Amy Pond was taken by the Weeping Angels they’d both cried, then pretended like they hadn’t, and had a great time made fun of Sam for admitting he had cried over the Weeping Angels getting Amy, until Sophie had ratted them out about it.

* * *

 

 Sam said the two of them could blow him, and that they were both asshats. Then, Sam had to go back and explain what the hell asshat even meant, which had led to a week long game of dirty-word Scrabble that Bucky and Steve still giggle over. They’d both thought they were fairly well-versed in foul language from being in the army, but now, there was even _more_ profanity to work with. Bucky thinks his new favorite curse was either twat waffle or ass monkey, but it’s hard to choose.

 Bucky had, in fact, told Steve just the other morning that he was an ass monkey. Steve had given him an unimpressed look and retaliated by calling Bucky a douche canoe, and saying that Bucky’s always been a bigger than average douche. It reminds him of when the two of them lived together, and had traded insults as easy as breathing. It may be stupid that swearing makes him nostalgic, but giving each other shit has always been their dynamic and Bucky misses that. Misses the easy friendship of their youth. It’s still rough going at times with them, but it’s getting better, and he owes a lot of that to Sophie and how much she’s helped him in feeling like a human being again.

* * *

 

Point being, there wasn’t a lot Sophie hadn’t seen, and Bucky knows that it’s the other thing that Nila had brought up the same day as the massage talk, that has him taking a really long ass shower to try and calm down. That or he’d eventually drown in here, whichever came first at this point was okay with him.

Bucky had tried a few times to get himself off, and saying it hadn’t gone well would be a huge understatement. The last time he had been close to getting somewhere Bucky had a flashback to some fucking HYDRA goon unbuckling his pants and saying that the Asset’s mouth should get used for something since he so rarely spoke, and Bucky had ended up not sleeping for two days because he was scared of what he’d see when he closed his eyes. So yeah, not good.

 The idea of pitching a tent when Sophie is touching him is what has him thinking about giving it another try now, and Bucky blows out a long breath to steady himself as he picks up the bottle of shampoo. He follows it up with conditioner so his hair doesn’t turn into a tangled up mop when it’s dry. Besides, it makes his hair feel silky and soft, and according to Bucky’s doctor, he’s allowed to have nice things now. So fuck you, HYDRA.

 Bucky rinses his hair and moves on to washing his body. He can remember being a teenager and fighting with his sisters over the bathroom at home. It was rare that any of them had time to linger in there -- someone was always beating on the door wanting in -- but Bucky had made the most of it when he got up early or got home late from work, and draws on the memories of it as he runs his hands over himself, and tries to remember what good even feels like anymore.

 Bucky keeps the touch light as he runs his fingers down his neck, and he skims over the thin skin that covered the sensitive scent glands there, and it still has his eyes wanting to cross at how damn good it feels. He traces over his collarbones, not as prominent since he’s gained back some weight, and flattens his palm to cover his chest and down along his sides, sweeps back up to graze over his nipples and circles them with his thumbs and the resulting spike of pleasure has him hissing in a breath. Bucky can feel his cock give an interested twitch at the proceedings, and when he ventures a look down, he’s surprised to see that he more than half hard already.

Well, that answers part of the question, Bucky thinks. Now he just has to put it all together and see if it still works. He sits down on the stone bench in the corner, then bites the bullet and takes himself in hand, letting muscle memory take over. He’s thought of several things that could go wrong (like it had for him last time) but he never thought he’d be biting his lip to keep from crying out with how fucking amazing it feels.

 Bucky’s completely hard now, the head is peeking out of his foreskin, and he’s already wet and leaking pre-come. He rubs his fingers over the tip to spread it out, then gives himself a long stroke that has him shuddering with pleasure. He circles the base of his cock with his metal hand to put pressure on his aching knot, the slit drooling in response as he keeps on stroking himself, and it drags a low groan out of his chest. He doesn’t try to make it last, it’s been too damn long for him. Bucky can feel his heart beating quickly now and closes his eyes, giving himself over the new sensations. Three more strokes, and he can feel his balls tightening and the gathering tension at the base of his spine, and then Bucky is keening as he comes for what feels like forever, body just alight with it as his knot swells in his hand as the orgasm rips through him, semen coating his hand and dripping onto the shower floor. He keeps up the motion until he’s too sensitive to keep going, and he slumps against the wall of the shower with his eyes closed, gasping for air and totally blissed out.

 Bucky snorts a laugh after a minute, thinking that he shouldn’t probably get this much satisfaction just from jerking off, but he feels so damn _good_ right now. Maybe the doctors were onto something with all the _satisfying personal needs_ shit. Bucky thinks that he really _does_ feel satisfied, and the thought has him laughing again as he stands up to rinse himself off. At least now, he won’t be thinking about sex the whole time that Sophie is working on his shoulder. And, he just thought about it. _Shit._ And then the fact that he is thinking about it, _again, fuck_ , starts his hands shaking, and Bucky almost rips the fabric of the gray sweatpants when he yanks them on. He startles badly when he hears Sophie give a light knock on the door, and has to concentrate a little too hard on not ripping the door off its hinges when he pulls it open. Sophie is standing there with a small glass bottle in her hands, and when she smiles up at him Bucky can feel the tension ease as her scent of sun-drenched oranges fills the air, and he smiles back at her and waves her in his room.

 Bucky sits on the edge of his bed and watches as Sophie carefully pulls the wax off the cork on the glass bottle, and when she pulls the stopper out he can smell cedar and cloves rising immediately, so close to his own scent that he raises a brow at her in question.

 Sophie can feel her face start to go red from the smug look that James was giving her. It’s not like Alphas and Omegas _can’t_ normally tell what another’s scent is, it’s just that most people _won’t_ acknowledge the fact they can, because it’s not considered very polite unless you’re bonded to the person or have something a little more significant that just being friends with them going on. And she's not even going to think about that too hard. “Okay, so I _maybe_ told my cousin Rose who makes this stuff what you smell like, and she made it to compliment your natural scent. It’s supposed to be a comforting thing for Alphas, and you can quit laughing at me _any time_ now.”

 It just makes Bucky laugh harder when Sophie scowls at him, face still bright red, and he leans back on his hands and grins when she sticks her tongue out at him. “I didn’t even realize that I _was_ scenting anymore, to tell the truth.”

“Oh. Um, yeah, you have been for a while now. May I touch your hand?” Sophie asked quickly, in a poor attempt to change the subject. Not that James doesn’t see right through her, if the giant shit-eating grin on his face is anything to go by, which she resolutely ignores and pours some of the oil in her palm, and rubs her hands together to warm it up. James’ blue eyes have gone wide as he watches her closely, and Sophie knows that for all the teasing, he’s nervous. For James, anything, that is even vaguely medical still scares the shit out of him, and he’s touchy about his prosthetic being messed with. James finally bites his lip, giving her a slow nod to go ahead, holding his hand out as she sits down beside him. He starts when she takes his hand in hers, but Sophie keeps her touch light, just rubbing the oil into his skin before turning his hand over and smoothing her thumbs over his palm, making his fingers twitch in response. Sophie gives each finger a light tug and works her way down to his fingertips and then back up to his wrist.

 It’s a good stopping point, and Sophie wants to check in and make sure he’s still doing okay with everything. “How’s it going, James?”

 “Well, it is pretty intense, but I think I can handle it, _Sophia_ ,” James said, blowing out an exaggerated breath of relief, smirking when Sophie narrows her eyes at him.

“You’re such a tool, oops, I mean, that’s _great!_ You’re doing really well,” Sophie chirped, then laughed when James gave her braid a gentle tug, shaking his head at the overly-effusive praise. She can feel him tense briefly when her fingers slide over the thin skin that covers the scent glands in his wrist, and then relax back into the touch as she rubs the corded muscles in his forearm. James shifts restlessly as she moves up his bicep to work the thick muscles in his shoulder, but when she glances up at him, his blue eyes are calm and easy as he watches her.

“Want to try your back now?” Sophie asked, then laughed when James flopped over on his stomach with a grunt before she even finished getting the words out. “I’ll take that as a yes.” She’s glad that James isn’t able see her face right now, because she can’t hold back a wince at the scars that fan out before skin gives way to metal. The shining metal is beautiful in its own way, it’s the idea of how much pain he had to endure because of it that makes her want to cringe, and gives herself a mental shake, because if she just keeps sitting here and staring at him, James will tense back up. Sophie rolled her own shoulders, then she starts with long, slow motions, gentling the tight muscles in the side of his neck and shoulder, teasing out the knots caused by the weight of his arm, and she grins at his back when she hears James heave a sigh into the pillow. Sophie carefully applies more of the oil to the raised and thickened scar tissue that surrounds the metal in his shoulder, and feels James tense up imperceptibly at the touch of her hands on the sensitive skin, and shifts to running long lines up his spine. After a long minute she can feel James relax again, and he blows out a shaky breath as he melts into the touch. The scars sometimes look red and irritated, the human body simply isn’t meant to have metal fused to it, but now the red had faded to a soft pink that reminds her of nautilus shells, and James is breathing deep and easy as she rubs the long muscles of his back. Sophie would think that he’d fallen asleep, but then James would give the occasional sigh or make a contented sound that was suspiciously close to a purr when she worked on a particularly sore spot, but he doesn’t say anything until she stops rubbing his back, and gets up to wipe off her hands.

Sophie turned back to him, and James is sitting up, watching her with red-rimmed eyes, and she swears she can feel her heart stop, because she had either hurt him somehow or else she had fucked up and triggered something, and why the _hell_ hadn’t she been more careful.

“James, what’s wrong?” Sophie dropped down between his knees to look up at him. “Did I hurt you?”

 Bucky shook his head as he watches Sophie reach out for him, then yank her hand back like she’d been burned. “You didn’t hurt me. It’s just dumb,” he said roughly, swiping a hand over his eyes

Sophie frowned hard at that. “If I made you feel bad, it’s not dumb. I should have been more careful.”

 Bucky groaned as he held up a hand to cut her off. “You didn’t hurt me or anything. It’s just been a long time since I …even after I got away from HYDRA … you were the first person that … and I --” Bucky watches understanding dawn in her eyes, and he sucks in a sharp breath when Sophie pressed a kiss to his cheek, then tucks a lock hair behind his ear. Bucky can feel tears sting his eyes when he pulls her up for a hug and buries his face in her silky black hair, and just holds her and lets himself be held in return. After a long minute Bucky takes a shaky breath, and lets the scent of Omega and Sophie and home remind him that he’s here and he’s safe and that he’s no longer alone. __

* * *

 Bucky woke up with a raging hard-on. He automatically reaches out for Sophie before he can think better of it, and isn’t sure if he’s glad or not when he realizes that the sheets where she’d been laying are now cool, and she’s already gone. Bucky groaned and buried his face in the pillow and he can feel his cock give an urgent twitch in response to the sharp scent of Omega that saturated the fabric. Bucky reluctantly gets up after a minute, and glares down at the erection that’s leaking and poking out the front of his shorts and he wants to scream with frustration.

“I cannot go around jerking off a dozen times a day,” Bucky said out loud, and he thinks that he’s starting the day with a personal new low, because he’s now talking to his dick. Not that the damn thing is paying him any attention, and he can feel it bob with every step he takes as he heads for the bathroom and a cold shower.

* * *

_“What?_ ” Bucky growled. He hates the fucking cold, and taking a cold shower hadn’t done a damn thing to settle him down or improve his mood, so the words come out more sharply than he intended as he stands there, wet and miserable, waiting for her to answer him. But really, what the _fuck_. Sophie is just fucking _staring_ at him, staring at his arm, and it him hurts more than some of the beatings he had taken as a prisoner of HYDRA. Like he’s gone back to being some kind of thing again, and it makes something in Bucky’s chest give an unpleasant twist.

Sophie ignored the snarl on his face, and she took James’ metal hand in hers, and raised his arm up to see how the muscles moved in his shoulder now. The redness of the irritated scar tissue had faded to a soft pink, and he looks much easier in his movements than he did last night. Well, other than the fact he looked really pissed off, and baffled as to why she’s gawking at him and petting him like she was rubbing a Buddha for luck.

 Sophie ran her fingers over raised scar tissue and skin scented of cedar and cloves that was still warm and damp from his shower. She can feel James instinctive flinch at the touch, then he makes a soft sound low in his throat and gives an all over body shudder in response. It’s on the tip of her tongue to ask him if he’s still hurting or just cold, but the sudden heat in his eyes has Sophie stepping back without saying a word.

 Bucky thinks he just might die if he doesn’t kiss her.

The casual way Sophie touched him had always been a revelation to him _(even when it made him want to question her sanity for letting herself be alone with a rutting Alpha)_ and at first it had shaken him to the core. Even in the very beginning when he was at his most unstable, she would think nothing of giving him a hug when she thought he needed it or stroking his hair until he fell back asleep after he woke them both up screaming his way out of another nightmare.Not once had she ever hesitated to show him that she cared for him. That she trusted him not to hurt her, no matter what anyone else had said or thought about it -- and Bucky knew for a fact that she wasn’t like that with everyone -- because Sam had remarked the other day that he couldn’t remember seeing Sophie act this happy, quickly dropping the subject when instead of looking pleased, Sophie had gone wide-eyed and silent and she smelled miserable and afraid.

 Bucky wondered in the beginning if Sophie had to force herself to act normal around him. If she wasn’t hiding the fact that being close to a rutting Alphas scared the shit out of her on some level _(because Bucky had done some fairly inappropriate things before he had started to get his shit together. Things that would have made his mother cringe. Like_ _growling at Steve for sitting too close to her. Like scent marking her in public)_. After a while Bucky had thought that it was possible that she was as disgusted by the wreck HYDRA had made of him as Bucky was himself, when he saw her flinch the first time she’d seen the scars that covered his body, but now Bucky knows that it was the fact Sophie cares about him that made her look sad when she’s seen how much had been done to him. Bucky knows that when Sophie looked at him, she sees him and nothing else. That she never saw the thing that HYDRA had turned him in to or even Sergeant James Barnes from the 107th. Sophie didn’t see the shadow of the man he used to be, but the person he is _now_ \-- and for the first time, Bucky thinks that that might just be enough.

The feel of Sophie’s fingers trailing over the twisted blend of man and machine makes him shiver as goosebumps follow in the path of her fingers, and Bucky rumbles a questioning sound at her before he can get control of himself. When Sophie smiles up at him, Bucky thinks if he doesn’t kiss her right now, it’ll be the biggest regret of his goddamn unnaturally long life.

 Bucky sees Sophie’s golden eyes shoot wide with surprise as he leans towards her, and just like that, he loses his nerve and bolts. Or he tries to anyway, Sophie yanks him to a halt by grabbing the back of his towel, and he either stops or runs off with his bare ass in the wind. And he's tempted, but his pride has taken enough of a hit without adding on running off like a complete coward and naked to boot. 

“I don’t want you to go,” Sophie whispered, slowly runs her fingers over the scarring along the back of his shoulder and arm, and he feels the same flare of heat that he did last night when she had tried to ease the ache of over-taxed muscles, and Bucky can feel her breath, warm on his skin, right before she presses a kiss to his shoulder, and it tears a whine out of his chest as he tries to relearn how to breathe. Bucky feels all the blood in his brain go AWOL, and head south so fast he feels dizzy as Sophie puts her hands on him, her fingers tightening on his hips for balance as she stands on her toes to press a kiss to the scent gland in side of his neck, making him groan loudly before Bucky can’t stand it anymore and he turns around to face her, and then he finally, fucking _finally,_ kisses her the way that he’s wanted to for what feels like forever.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know. I suck ass for leaving it there, but thar be porn sighted on the horizon! Seriously, the next chapter is full of Alpha/Omega goodness, and awkwardness. Hee!


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sophie comes to terms with her growing feelings for Bucky. Bucky comes to terms his feelings for Sophie, and a realization is had.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry to everyone that had read this that it took me so long to get this posted. I lost most of what I had written due to laptop death, had tfcc repair surgery on my dominant hand, and was in cast what felt like for-fucking-ever. 
> 
> Anyway, here's the next chapter. There's no smut in this chapter because it got so long that I had to split it in two. The next chapter is coming soon. And will contain smut. 
> 
> Warnings for this chapter: Mentions of rape! Also, descriptions of horny people.

Davis, West Virginia ~ 2001

* * *

Sophie whacked her head on the bathroom counter hard enough that it brought tears to her eyes -- but what didn’t make her cry these days -- she thought bitterly as she rubbed the sore spot, checking it out in the mirror to see if her head was bleeding, and then just stares in shock at her reflection. 

 _“Jesus Christ,”_ she said in disbelief. Sophie had watched a movie with Olivia and David that had zombies in it last night, and she looks so pale that the undead in the movie looked better than she does right now. Sophie can’t remember the last time she bothered to shower or run a brush her hair, and her light brown eyes are ringed with dark circles. Her broken arm is throbbing in its bright purple cast, and the fading bruises on her face are turning a really nasty shade of greenish-yellow. Sophie looks at her reflection for a long minute before snatching up the glass sitting beside the sink, and throwing it at the mirror as hard as she could with a shriek. The mirror explodes with a hellacious crash, sending the shattered glass all over the floor, and Sophie choked back a sob as she kicked the front of the vanity. The cabinet door caved in with a brittle snap of wood, and Sophie heard Olivia give a startled yelp from their bedroom at the noise, and wants to fucking smack herself because she’d forgotten that Livvy had stayed home from school today to baby-sit her.

And _that’s_ when Sophie finally bursts into tears. _Again._

David was the one who got fucking gang-raped. David was the one who was going to have to explain the multiple bond-bites on his neck to people for the rest of his life. David was the one who had lost the chance to ever have babies, because the internal damage from the rapes was bad enough that the doctors thought it was very unlikely that he would ever be able to carry to term, even if he did manage to get pregnant.

Sophie is disgusted with herself as she angrily wiped the tears off her cheeks. She needs to quit acting like such a damn baby, and get it together before her parents get back from taking David to his doctor appointment, and they can all see that she’s been crying. David had been savagely attacked by Alphas like monsters out of story, and Sophie had walked away from it with only a few bruises and a broken arm. So, she really needed to pull up her big-girl panties, and quit acting like it was all about her, Sophie thinks as she scrubs at the tears that keep wanting to fall.

“Are you okay?” Olivia demanded as she skidded to a halt in the doorway, eyes widening at the mess. “Holy _shitballs,_ Sophie!”

“Please don’t tell Mom and Dad,” Sophie begged, even as she was thinking there is no way that anyone with eyes in their head could miss how bad she’d trashed the bathroom.

“For fuck’s sake, like I would.” Olivia said as she rolled her eyes, then silently nudged her aside and got a wash-cloth out of a drawer, running cold water over it before handing it to Sophie to wipe her face with, and her next words prove that twins really do have a special mental connection. “And besides, it’s not like I’m going _have_ to say anything to them, you dumb shit. You broke the mirror and there’s a giant fucking hole in the vanity. I think they’re gonna notice.”

“You can fuck off, Liv!” Sophie snapped. But it’s the thought of how upset their mom is going to be over this that makes her start crying again. Her parents have enough shit to deal with right now without her acting like a two-year old having a tantrum.

Olivia sighed and took her sister by the hand and led her into their room. Sophie gratefully burrowed into the warmth of the bed, and Livvy climbed in right behind her twin, cuddling close and humming a soothing sound under her breath as she strokes Sophie’s hair.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Sophie said. “David was the one who got hurt, and all I can do is cry all the time.”

“Mom and Da said that I shouldn’t ask you or David what happened. Not unless you guys bring it up first and want to talk, but what the hell happened?” Olivia whispered. “I heard Mom talking with Da, and she was saying that David needed to go in for another STD test today. You have to tell me what’s going on, I can’t stand it.”

Sophie clutched her sister’s hand so tight that it had to hurt, but Olivia just let Sophie hold on to her as tight as she needed without a word of protest. It was their relationship in a nutshell, Sophie thinks with sudden flash of humor. They bitch at each other, and they fight with each other, and they drive their parents and each other nuts on a regular basis, but when it came down to the wire, neither one of them would ever be to the first to let go.

“We’d just gone to get ice cream,” Sophie said. “David said he had to take a break from studying, and that he needed ice cream or the cramps were gonna make him lose his mind. So we got ice cream and we were walking back and cut through the park, and I guess that he must have scented the Alphas way before I did, because it wasn’t until David starting smelling really scared that I knew something was wrong.”

“Alphas?” Olivia asked, voice quivering. “You mean there was more than one? Why didn’t one of them stop the others?”

“Because they’re fucking monsters,” Sophie growled. “There were five of them."

“Oh my god,” Olivia said, horrified as it becomes clear to her now.

Sophie feels a shiver run down her back at the memory that is still so fresh and raw it has her waking up in the night trying not to scream. “We had just gotten to the edge of the park when they caught up with us, and David gave me a shove and yelled at me to run. And when they… when they caught up with us … they hit him at first. It took three of them to hold him down while the others took turns raping him. The one that had a hold of me kept saying that after they were through with him that they would fuck me next.”

Olivia whined under her breath. “Sophie, did they --”

“No. Just … no.” Sophie shook her head vehemently, gritting her teeth around the urge to scream with the horror of it. To just rage against all the pain that dances through her mind when she closes her eyes now at night. “Liv, they hurt him so bad. David kept screaming. You know how they said in health class that it makes an Omega feel better when they’re knotted? It’s such fucking bullshit. It hurt him so much. David was screaming for them to stop and they were laughing. They said that he _loved_ it, that all Omegas need a big cock in them, and then the next one would mount him. All you could smell was fear and pain, and there was blood everywhere. I finally bit the Alpha that was holding me. He kept hitting me harder to get me to let go, and I think that’s when my arm must have broken. It hurt really bad, and I guess that I passed out because when I woke up, there was just the one Alpha still there and he had David pinned down and knotted.”

“Jesus Christ,” Olivia moaned, hiding her face in her twin’s hair. “How did David get the guy off him if they were tied?”

Sophie sat up then so she could look at Olivia, and took a deep breath. “David couldn’t get loose. He tried to, but the … um… the knot was stuck. So I grabbed a brick from one of the flower-beds and hit the Alpha in the head with it.”

Sophie waits for Olivia to say something. To say anything really, but Livvy just stares at her silently until Sophie can’t stand it anymore. “Didn’t you hear me? I beat that guy’s head in with a brick, and the most fucked up part is that David had to wait for the knot to go down after the Alpha died. David had to stay fucking _tied_ with a dead guy.” Sophie was yelling now. “When the police finally got there, it was like they were trying to say it was David’s fault because he knew was close to going in heat. That he should have _known_ better than to go out in public like that. Like Omegas are to blame for Alphas acting like fucking animals, and did you even hear anything I said? Say _something_ for Christ’s sake, Olivia.”

People usually say that Olivia is the sweet Spencer girl. The nice one. People like to tell Sophie that she would really be more popular if she acted more like her twin, and maybe that was even true, but what people didn't realize is that Olivia's line would begin and end with the people she loved every time.

“I heard you just fine,” Olivia spit out. “Fuck that piece of shit Alpha. And fuck _anyone_ who says that David should have been more careful. We have the right to go where we want and not be attacked just because some Alpha monster can’t keep their knots to themselves. I’m glad that he’s dead, Sophie.”

Sophie bit her lip hard. “After they took us to the hospital, they kept asking me why David was out in public if he thought it was possible he go into heat. I thought Da was going to lose his shit when l told him all the questions that they were asking me on the way to the hospital.”

“Bastards,” Olivia hissed in outrage.

“I can’t believe that _anyone_ would want to have sex with an Alpha. They’re just awful,” Sophie blurted out.

“But, that was rape,” Olivia said, frowning. “That’s not the way sex is supposed to be normally.”

“I know it was rape, I was there. And normal or not, I’m still never having sex with an Alpha. They’re pigs,” Sophie said in disgust.

“Um, Soph? Our father is an Alpha, and you know that Da would never do something like that. And it’s not like we don’t know other mated couples, so it’s not that way for everyone,” Olivia disagreed. “You know that all Alphas aren’t like that. I know that I want a mate someday. Don’t you want to fall in love?

“No way in hell.” Sophie shuddered at the thought. “I never want to bond. What do you think it’ll be like for David? Sharing a bond with someone that raped him."

“That’s the worst thing that I’ve ever heard in my entire life,” Olivia said simply. “But that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

“Supposed to be or not, I heard Mom say that David might be stuck with one of the Alphas as a mate, if the doctors can’t break the bond chemically,” Sophie shot back, feeling sick at the thought. “I know it’s not love. It’s just stupid ass Omega biology, and I’m not doing it. I’m not bonding or letting some piece of shit knot me. Not ever.”

* * *

Sophie thinks she’s done a lot of really dumb shit in her life, but this might actually take the prize for the dumbest thing ever, because James is kissing her, and it’s every single thing that a first kiss should be. Just because Sophie normally avoided relationships and all the tangle that went with them like the plague didn’t mean she was a total idiot, or that she was blind to the attraction that had been slowly growing between James and herself.

And even if Sophie had been ignoring the fact of how much she liked him, she did manage to notice that James was funny and kind and beautiful, and that he put up with all her neurotic bullshit without complaining. Or complaining much anyway, Sophie was a hot-mess on a good day. And James smelled so damn good, like warm cedar and cloves, like coming home, and holy _shit_ did she have it bad.

So, at first, Sophie had pushed it aside because James was still getting himself together from 70+ years of HYDRA’s torture, and healing from that kind of damage to body and spirit didn’t happen overnight. But, James was healing. There were things done to him that he would never wholly recover from, but James was on his way.

So now, the fact Sophie wanted to climb James like a tree, and then drown herself in his cedar and clove scent like a dog rolling on a particularly good smell they had found for good measure, well, the urge is getting harder for her to ignore. More like impossible for her to ignore even if she wanted to, because Sophie considers James a real friend now. They hang out and watch movies together, they cook meals together, and harass Steve and Sam together, and on then several nights of the month end up sleeping together.

It really had just sleeping and letting James use her scent to help regulate his ruts. It wasn’t like she had been nesting with him, right? Never mind the fact that she had to fight back the instinctive urge more than once to bring pillows and blankets from home to make James’ bed would smell like a proper nest, it wasn’t like she’d actually _done_ it. Even though Sophie was happier than she’s ever been in her entire life, she would have denied that she wanted anything else. It would have been the biggest lie of her entire life, but Sophie still would have denied it

Because the truth was that James felt like hers now. It scared the hell out of her, but Sophie hadn’t had the good sense to take a step back. So now, half the mornings when she woke up James was wrapped around her like an octopus, and instead of making her feel scared, like she always thought having an Alpha that close would do, James just makes her feel safe and happy.

Somewhere along the way, being with James had started to feel like happiness and home and all things good to her, and Sophie thinks that if there is an afterlife, Olivia is without a doubt laughing her ass off over the fact that her twin had finally been bitten by love. __

* * *

 

The way James is kissing her is killing any bit of common sense Sophie had ever claimed to have had -- because if she hadn’t frozen like a deer in headlights when she saw how James was looking at her -- she would have put a stop to it. Sophie really doesn’t want the kiss to stop, possibly _ever,_ it’s that good. It has her shoving aside all sensible thoughts of what she should do, in favor of what she wants, and what Sophie wants is to pull James in closer for another kiss and to run her hands over as much of his skin as possible.

Bucky wonders for a minute if he’s finally snapped and gone fucking crazy. It really is the only sensible explanation for what’s happening, but he can feel the warmth of Sophie’s skin under his hand, has the taste of her on his lips now. Bucky can feel his hands shaking as he runs his fingers through Sophie’s dark hair, and the rising scent of aroused Omega hits him like a blow when Bucky noses over the scent-glands in her neck. Sophie’s warm scent of oranges grows stronger and darker as she presses closer to him, and Bucky can’t hold back the rumble of pure Alpha satisfaction. The noise has Sophie tipping her head back with a soft, pleading whine of invitation in response, and when Bucky licks and nips at the sensitive skin there, she makes a needy sound that goes straight to his cock. Sheer want buzzes through him like fire, making long dormant Alpha instincts flare to life, his mouth watering with the need to bite the soft skin under his lips, and Bucky aches with desire to mate and claim the Omega for his own.

Bucky scoops Sophie up and turns and sits her on the dresser. It knocks a few things to the floor with a clatter, but he pays it no mind as he moves in, crowding between her legs as he kisses her again. Sophie pulls him closer, and Bucky hums with pleasure when she runs her hands up his shoulders to tangle in his hair. Sophie’s mouth opens under his, and the brush of her tongue against his for the first time has him moaning into the kiss.

Bucky feels something give with a crack under his left hand, the sound giving him an unpleasant jolt, because Bucky had just been touching Sophie with _both_ of his hands. He hadn’t thought twice about it. All thought had been swept away with the rising need to touch, but now fear spiraled though him at the thought of possibly hurting her. It’s just one more thing to add to the always growing list of things that HYDRA had taken from him; the ability to ever do _anything_ like a normal person would. Shame and regret leave a dark, bitter taste in his mouth, and his are hands trembling as Bucky makes himself take a long step back from her.

Sophie reaches back out for him, giving him a flinty look when he stays just out of reach. “I don’t break that easily.”

Bucky just shook his head as he gulped in air. Sophie looks wrecked. Golden eyes are dark with want and anger, her lips are kiss swollen and wet, and it takes all he has not to pull her to him and kiss that scowl off her face.

Sophie is also dressed to go out, Bucky notes unhappily, after he can finally make himself focus on something else besides the need to touch her. Sophie’s wearing makeup, and her usually wild black curls had been swept up in a fancy braid (or it had been in a fancy braid before he’d gotten his hands in it) and a soft, wine colored sweater that now has a rip at the neck.

“I tore your shirt,” Bucky said, voice dripping with self-loathing. “You’ll need to change before you leave.”

“Leave, why am I leaving? Oh _shit_ , I’m supposed to pick David up at the airport,” Sophie said with a yelp as she hopped down off the dresser. She pulled the sweater over her head and huffed a laugh when she sees the rip. It leaves her standing there in just her bra and jeans. Sophie heard James make a soft sound and when she looks at him, his pale blue eyes had gone dark with longing, but the big dummy was still standing over there and staring at her like he’s scared to touch her.

Time to break out the big guns.

“I have your scent all over me,” Sophie whispered as she walked over to him, not stopping until she’s close enough to feel the heat from his body. Bucky huffs in a breath open-mouthed as he reflexively scents the air, and growls long and low. He can smell the scent of Omega need, with the overlay of his own Alpha scent, and Bucky rumbles at her again before he can stop it, and watches Sophie shiver at the noise.

“Jesus,” Bucky muttered as he scrubbed a hand over his face. Sophie arches a brow at him, the sight of her standing there in a skimpy black bra, all that pale skin and the soft scent of interested Omega doing nothing to help him calm down, even if she is kind of glaring at him now. Bucky thinks he needs to fix this before it’s too late and they can’t come back from this mess he’s made of things.

“I’m sorry that got so out-of-hand,” Bucky forces the words out as he picked up Sophie’s shirt, and pressed it into her hands with a rueful smile. “I don’t know that the hell got into me just then, but I won’t let it happen again. You had better get going if you’re going to make it to the airport on time.” 

For a minute all Sophie could do is stare at him in disbelief before it hits her what he’s doing. James is trying to give her an out. A chance to pretend that it didn’t matter, that it didn’t really mean anything. They could shake hands and walk away, write it off as a heat of the moment thing, and then act like nothing ever happened.

Well, _fuck that,_ Sophie thinks savagely, letting the shirt drop again in favor of running her hands up his arms, feeling both muscles and metal plates shifting restlessly, and watches James’ blue eyes widen almost comically as she cupped his face in her hands.

“You damn well better not mean that,” Sophie said as she leans up to give him a kiss. The kiss is soft, delicate and sweet, and Sophie can see the relief flare bright in James’ eyes as he brushes his cheek over hers before pulling her into a careful hug. Sophie stood on her toes to scent at his neck and feels the laugh under her cheek when she wrapped her arms around him. James finally bends his head to scent and the relief that floods through her almost makes her giddy, because how could James ever, _ever_ think that she would want to forget him.

“You had better get going, Sophie,” Bucky said after a long minute and huffs out a laugh when she snags his Dodgers hoodie off the bed and tugs it on over her head. “That’s maybe a little big on you,” Bucky said with a grin when her head finally emerged from the neck of the sweatshirt.

Sophie just arched a brow at him, the smile on her face turning wicked. “It may have been said before that I have zero fashion sense, but I like this. It smells like you, like you still have your arms around me.”

Bucky makes an embarrassing noise and tries to ignore the fact he’s still mostly naked, and that the towel is doing _nothing_ to hide how hard he is. “I cannot believe you said that right when you’re getting ready to leave. That’s just cold, Sophie.”

“Cold, huh? Guess that I’ll just have to warm you back up later,” Sophie said straight-faced, laughing when James covers his eyes with a groan.

“Oh, my god, that was so bad.” Bucky rolled his eyes as he laughed, and the smile that he gives her is probably looks goofy as hell, but he can’t bring himself to give much of a shit because he’s just so damn happy. Bucky’s not going to ruin this by thinking of all the things that could go wrong. He’s _not._

“Who ever told you that you were funny? Sophie, that was awful. Get out of here.”

“Yeah, I have to go.” Damn it. The last thing she wants to do now is leave. Sophie wants to stay and kiss James some more. Kiss him until he makes that Alpha rumble that curls her toes, and then take him home, take him into her bed, so that her nest smells like the two of them, and she can finally see what the big deal is about being knotted.

Sophie wonders just how pissed David would be if she made him get a cab before deciding that David was enough of an asshole that he would never stop giving her shit about it. And she really wants more than the hour or so that they would have before her cousin would show up and kill her for leaving him stranded at the airport. Sophie wants days to learn all the ways to make James melt into her touch, and have him look at her like she was the best thing in his world. The thought of it gets her heart beating quicker, and Sophie sees that James’ blue eyes widen as he registers the change in her scent when she goes up on tiptoe to give him a kiss.

Sophie meant to keep it brief and simple, a quick kiss goodbye. So, of course she loses her shit and practically inhales him. Licking into his mouth, nipping at his lush mouth, and nosing over the bonding glands in his neck to scent until James shudders and moans into her mouth, rumbling deep in his chest at her. Sophie whines softly as she feels the hot, hard length of his erection pushing against her, and wonders what he would taste like, and she’s going to do some serious cleaning up before she leaves because she’s so wet that her underwear feel soaked, and the pre-heat scent of horny Omega is liable to start a riot in the airport if she doesn’t do some damage control first.

Bucky gives her a final kiss, then spins her around and gives her a push to get going. “I’ll be here when you get back, we can talk more then.”

Sophie stopped at the door and turned to blow James a kiss. “Yeah, we can … talk.” And she leaves with the sound of James laughter in her ears, and feeling so happy that it ought to be illegal.

* * *

Bucky waits until he hears the door shut before he walks into the bathroom. He needs to get a shower to tone down the scent of willing Omega that’s all over his skin or he’s going to be walking around with his cock trying to tear a hole through his pants all day. Bucky thinks about seeing Sophie later. About kissing Sophie later. Maybe letting Sophie mark him with her scent, and he has to bite back a moan when he feels his dick give an urgent twitch at the thought.

Bucky can tell from her scent that Sophie isn’t far off from her heat, and for the first time that knowledge doesn’t leave him conflicted or feeling guilty. The few times Sophie had gone into heat since Bucky had met her, Sophie had just taken herself out of the equation; taking off for a few days, then coming back like nothing happened. No big deal.

Bucky hadn’t really had much a reaction to it. Well, not _much_ of a reaction other than some really inappropriate erections, and probably some even more inappropriate scent-marking, Bucky thinks with a mental eye-roll at himself, and the rampant horniness of rut. The obvious note of fertility in her scent was the real problem for him, but Bucky thinks that there isn’t an Alpha on the planet that wouldn’t stop and take a second look at an Omega that they were compatible to mate with.

The fact he had scented the hell out of her when she came back after her heat, isn't something that Bucky is particularly proud of, but fuck it, he's only human.

Bucky still isn’t entirely sure he’d be able to share Sophie’s heat with her this time, presuming that she would even want to share her heat, but he wants to. God, does he want. That’s when Bucky realizes that he’s looking forward to something. That he is actually planning for his future like any other person would do, and the sheer luxury of the thought has him choking back a ragged laugh.

He is alive.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be coming soon, and will finish explaining why Sophie has been so anti-bonding up to this point in her life.
> 
> See you soon!!!


End file.
